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Matthew 7:26 NLT

'But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.'

I can be a foolish man. For many years I have consistently built upon sand. Not that I was foolish by design, just that what I hoped was rock only turned out to be sand with the benefit of hindsight. Many of the things from my Christian past have sadly been washed away and are no more than a memory born of an inappropriate appreciation of the gospel message and my calling.

The start of the storm was Katey’s diagnosis with MS. Then we experienced a change in the weather surrounding our lives. Where once we were future focused and carefree, now a storm began to form around and within us. At first I thought this storm required managing. I didn’t reckon upon its ferocity. All my carefully laid plans were washed away by torrential rains. All our possessions stripped from us; our preconceptions torn down; our confidence scattered. All that was left was the two of us. We felt naked, alone and frightened.

I had not wilfully chosen sand as my foundation. Yet, this storm revealed a formulaic, somewhat triumphalist strain of Christian expression that owed little resemblance to the life and witness of Jesus. At first, shell-shocked, we shouted back to the storm-filled skies, assuming we might through human endeavour tame this untimely weather. We slowly realised we’d lost that argument even before we’d started. This was a season of discovering we were and are nothing apart from Jesus. Human reason, resilience and endeavour were mere vanity before God’s weather systems. We embraced self-pity long before we settled on yielding to God and recognising he was indeed the rock. Whether reduced to nothing or raised up in some way, only God mattered. Outside of dependence on God, there can only ever be sand.

QUESTION: Is there any sand in the foundations of your relationship with God?

PRAYER: Lord, help me to build upon the rock of the gospel of your Son, Jesus Christ, and be faithful to him.