"But whoever hears my life-giving words,
and rejects them,
chooses to build on a foundation of sand.
The rains descend, and the floods rise.
Hurricane winds beat against the house,
and the foundation crumbles.
The house collapses,
and great is its fall."
-Jesus
After leaving the company of my friend and mentor, Paul Maxim, I took my newly developing carpentry skills* as well as a hearty supply of Maxim's Maxims! --"measure twice, cut once!"-- and used them to make money!
However, I found out that even though I wasn't "accountable" to my old boss for my work now, I was accountable to a new boss: building codes! More specifically, the people who enforce those codes! (I once had an over zealous electrical inspector threaten to "write me up" for unlicensed electrical work because he found me holding a wiring box I'd picked up off the floor and a pair of wire strippers in my tool belt!)
Most of the time Codes represent the processes, protocols and procedures for ensuring a safe, secure and enduring structure. But occasionally they are nothing more than attempts to generate revenue for government or the influence of business interests to protect their industry. Most of the time codes represent good science and good sense. Sometimes, not.
I've done enough remodeling work now to really come to appreciate best practices "codes" (and annoyed by questionable regulations.) Believe it or not, people try to do a lot of work on their own homes who really don't know how to properly safeguard their work or understand the potential danger they are "building" into their project.
Building codes recognize that there are always forces at work that have the potential to erode and/or destroy a structure whether instantaneously (like a fire) or over time (like water erosion of soil under a foundation.) They take into account a variety of conditions like geography - (structures in Florida are different than in Michigan to account for the possibility of hurricane force winds!); lifestyles - (the frenzied activity in urban areas vs quiet country living); property issues - (renting vs owning).
Jesus' words are the "best practices" for ensuring a solid, enduring life in a world filled with dangerous forces working to erode or destroy you! If you want a life in harmony with the Created Order, one free of dubious regulations or capricious influences, who better to know and teach these best practices then the One through Whom Life came into existence?!
There are hurricane force winds and flood waters of fear, technology and sexual deviancy that are working to destroy the foundation of our lives as individuals, families and communities today!
The current worldwide panic over the Coronavirus is a perfect example. Without internet technology, government officials would not have the ability to communicate directives for people to "shelter in place" on such a coordinated global scale (as a matter of fact, our governor here in Michigan issued a smartphone emergency alert when she ordered her "stay home, save lives" directive.)
But the truth of the matter is that since the introduction of graphic media in the early 1900's up until the inception of the smartphone at the turn of the century, our senses have been trained to accept emotion based appeal over reason. (Actually you could go back many centuries to document mankind's attempt to disconnect the truth of God revealed in nature from man's attempt to control nature.)
Case in point, most every state (in order to qualify for Federal Disaster money) took strict measures to "flatten the curve" of the spread of Covid19 to ensure hospitals would not be overwhelmed. These measures included shutting down schools and businesses, ordering healthy people to quarantine in their own homes to avoid social contact and possibly spread the virus. Some states, including my own Michigan, took what has come to be considered "draconian" steps by determining what is "essential" to any individual's well being, ordering big box stores to cordon off areas like paint and garden supplies to keep the public safe and save lives, encourage neighbors to turn violators in and issue fines for those who disobeyed. Rather than deal with the naturally occurring development and course of a virus (including the fact that a certain percentage of people will die from a viral outbreak), governments turned to technology: computer models, expert opinions and social science theory to determine public policy. Since it has been difficult to get consistent and reliable information which, historically, enables people to make good decisions for themselves, the general economic and cultural uncertainty enhanced by technology (social media is rife with "experts" contradicting one another) is in many ways more destructive to the social fabric than any virus could ever be.
To Jesus' warning. Rejecting the Nature of God's dealings with mankind; rejecting His attempts to bring all people into a love relationship with Him using whatever resources He can; rejecting His words which bring order to the chaos and destruction people are capable of generating; rejecting obedience as the outworking of our love and trust in Him can have catastrophic consequences!
Think of it this way: Have you ever built a sand castle, then channeled water towards it? If you look closely, it is individual grains of sand that move with the current. Eventually, as enough grains are washed away, the entire structure collapses! In the same way, individuals are pulled away from faith, trust and obedience to the Lord of Truth and Life in today's world by addictively looking at smartphones hundreds of times a day and allowing, as Rod Dreher points out in The Benedict Option, "online technology by its very nature to scatter our attention like nothing else, radically compromising our ability to make sense of the world, physiologically rewiring our brains and rendering us increasingly helpless against our impulses." (page 219) Fear is the one great impulse being fostered by this unprecedented use of technology to control people's behavior!
Think of it this way: Have you ever built a sand castle, then channeled water towards it? If you look closely, it is individual grains of sand that move with the current. Eventually, as enough grains are washed away, the entire structure collapses! In the same way, individuals are pulled away from faith, trust and obedience to the Lord of Truth and Life in today's world by addictively looking at smartphones hundreds of times a day and allowing, as Rod Dreher points out in The Benedict Option, "online technology by its very nature to scatter our attention like nothing else, radically compromising our ability to make sense of the world, physiologically rewiring our brains and rendering us increasingly helpless against our impulses." (page 219) Fear is the one great impulse being fostered by this unprecedented use of technology to control people's behavior!Consider the great irony: as people put more of their trust into technology to provide relief and security from the chaos and uncertainty technology helped create, they will find themselves more isolated and fearful. As more individuals get swept away by fear, the more likely families, communities and nations will crash!
How can putting Jesus' words into practice provide protection and stability during difficult times?
Refuse to let fear dominate your thinking. Try unplugging from technology on a regular basis and just discipline your mind to focus on His commands and words, which are essentially His promises to help you achieve His right action in every situation. Trust in Him with all your heart. Don't lean on your own attempts to understand (believe it or not, you can't Google God's will!) before you put your heart into seeing what He is doing and join Him to be a blessing to a fear fractured world. When evil/fear increases, Jesus warned, the love of many grows cold. What a powerful opportunity to demonstrate the life of Christ by being kind, loving and carefree in world gripped by fear. By staying steadfast and true to the Word of Life you strengthen other's faith and help ensure your family, church, and community stays strong!
That's how you build an enduring life!
