What are we building on?

What are we building on?
                        

I remember as a kid going to Vacation Bible School at the church across the street in the village where I live. Matter of fact, it is the only church in Clark. We met in the fellowship hall around an old piano at the beginning of Bible school every night and sang songs like “This Little Light of Mine” and “Jesus Loves Me.”

One song I remember, I don’t remember the name of it, but the song was about the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The song even came with hand motions.

The children would make two fists and put one on top of another and rotate both fists to indicate the two men building their houses. Then we would raise our hands over our heads with our hands open and our fingers moving and bring them down for the rain.

For the foolish man, his house was washed away, so we would take both arms and move them from one side to the other. I can still hear it now: “The foolish man built his house upon the sand, the foolish man built his house upon the sand, the foolish man built his house upon the sand and the rain came tumbling down.”

In the book of Matthew at the very end of the sermon on the mount, Jesus told the parable of the man who built his house on the rock and the man who built his house upon the sand. We find the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapters five, six and seven.

Jesus talks about the golden rule, judging, lust, worry, praying and more teachings by him. He says if we hold on to what he taught, we will be like the man who built his house upon the rock. When the storms of life come, because we built upon him, we will not be blown away.

One of the recurring themes in the Bible is the idea of Jesus being our rock. King David called God his rock of salvation and his fortress. When I think of a rock in terms of how it is used in the Bible, I think of a large bolder or a mountain, something that can’t be moved, and if we cling to Jesus’ teachings, we will not be moved.

If we live our life according to the Bible, then like the wise man when things get rough, we will not be overcome be the storms of life. We all know the storm will come, but Jesus is our lifeline. We hold on to him while the winds are howling and knocking at our door.

In the story of Jesus with his disciples on the lake in a big storm, the disciples were terrified. They found Jesus taking a cat nap in the bow of the boat. When the disciples woke him, he calmed the storm. That is what he does to every one of us. In our soul there is a storm of doubt, worry and unbelief, but Jesus can and wants to speak peace to the storm.

The key is that we need to let him in so that he can give us peace. We can’t expect to do things our own way and hope he will give us peace. It must be done his way, and then we will have peace.

We can get peace by giving him full control of our lives: stop living for ourselves and start living for him. We should trust he knows what is best for us. Then our lives will be easier.

So many times when we try to do it on our own, we soon realize we can make a big mess of things real quick. When we give it to him, we lose the right to determine the outcome, but it is so freeing not to worry about anything and just realize Jesus has got it and is in control.


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