Don’t build your house on sandy land... .......... Parables 658

November 2, 1999

For us, it’s a five minute bike ride to the river bank where that large brick home slid over the edge. We drove by it earlier this summer, remembering it because of some plants under trees along its driveway. Obviously, the family who lived there enjoyed their home and its view.

Who can imagine their distress as they watched wood, brick and glass disappearing over the edge? Moving from home may be traumatic but watching your home move away from you is a horror. To some this may be “just a house” yet a home with all its memories means far more.

Apparently, the city of Edmonton warned contractors and owners about building along the river. Maybe it was just a general warning. Any river front property would have some liabilities. However, not every home on a river bank crumbles along with the ground beneath it.

Engineers are working to uncover the reason. Some guessed the foundation was weakened by an underground stream or erosion had moved the soil. They agreed the house itself was not at fault. The latest news says a natural ‘shift’ beneath the surface had done just that; it shifted and the house shifted with it.

While watching videos of the slide on television, I thought of a song the kids in our church sometimes sing. It is called “Sandy Land.” One part goes, “Don’t build your house on a sandy land; don’t build it too near the shore. It might look kind of nice but you’ll have to build it twice; you’ll have to build your house once more.”

This song is not talking about building codes or common sense. Instead, it comes from an illustration used by Jesus Christ. Matthew records his sermon about life and the foundations upon which we build our life. Our value systems, social norms and other ideals, including the way we ourselves were raised, determine how our lives are structured. But Jesus wanted to get across a point. He wanted our foundation to be stronger than any of those things.

To illustrate, He used a house: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”

In contrast, Jesus then added, “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

While our values and social norms are often good, we need more. We need to pay attention to the words of God. Yet Jesus made it clear that merely listening to or reading the Bible will not equip us for the stresses of life. Trials and difficulties will bring us down unless we also do what it says. Obedience to God is like muscle building. It puts us in shape, giving spiritual and even physical stamina. Disobedience makes us weak and unable to stand.

When Jesus compared obedience to a foundation built on a ‘rock,’ He may have been making a pun. A rock represents several things in the Bible. One is the church. Another is the body of truth taught in the Bible. However, the most important ‘rock’ is Jesus Himself. No matter what else we put under our lives as a foundation, He directs us to obey Him because He is the rock upon which we stand.

As horrible as it would be to watch our home slide from us, a far greater disaster would be watching our life fall apart. Stick and mortar will put the house back together or at least build a new one but rebuilding a life is a greater challenge. Jesus would rather we did not fall apart in the first place. He offers us Himself and obedience to what He says as building material for a shift-proof foundation.