Monday meditation: Building on sand always takes special care
Part Two in our November series:
”Here’s What Jesus Taught”
”A Sure Foundation Makes All the Difference”
Without warning, a high-rise fell on June 24, 2021, in the middle of the night in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida. In the rubble of Champlain Towers South, the 12-story beachfront condominium, 98 people died, and 11 more were injured; 35 were rescued from the uncollapsed portion of the building, which was demolished 10 days later.
The cause of the disaster, still under investigation, is more complicated than the picture Jesus proposed at the end of his Sermon on the Mount. He tells us what the Surfside architects surely knew: Buildings constructed on rock will stand; those built on sand won’t. Construction engineers today compensate for sandy soil by building elaborate support systems to make 12-story condos immovable, even at the edge of a beach.
But the plans must be accurate, and the standards must be followed. So far, investigators are suggesting this didn’t happen with Champlain Towers. The foundation wasn’t adequate.
A strong footing
Establishing a secure foundation was exactly the point Jesus was making to his first-century listeners. They couldn’t have imagined skyscrapers like the ones we take for granted today. But they knew a strong footing was essential for any structure to survive.
We know this, too. And we know pylons cannot be set deep into rock after several stories of the building are finished. If we, from our second-story bedroom, feel the house leaning, it’s too late to ask if the builder first started on solid ground.
The caregiver’s situation
The comparison resonates with the caregiver’s situation. Those tending to a patient with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or a host of other diseases stand on principle and conviction formed many years earlier. They rely on strategies for emotional and physical survival they discovered long before the diagnosis.
And those with faith in God remind themselves of everything they’ve studied about him and experienced from him and learned from the lives of other believers coping with crisis. The wind and the waves assault their sense of equilibrium, but although they may be battered, they stand.
Weekly duty
Of course, every analogy has its limits. We’ve seen how a person can thrive claiming God’s strength after years of not knowing him. Converted doubters of every age discover new, deep reservoirs of help. And building a secure foundation is a daily duty even for lifelong believers. It’s so easy to doubt. It so often seems right to think one’s own strength will suffice.
But at the end of a difficult day with weariness sapping the last drops of resolve, those with faith say softly, with conviction, “God I cannot do this alone.”
And he sets them aright on a foundation of his love and power to see them through another night.
Read: Matthew 7:24-29
Pray: Thank you, Lord, for telling us how to stand strong when we are wavering in the middle of the storm. We’re slowly learning that your way is the best way. Help us hold on for one more week.
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