A Deep Foundation

Hannah had been having one of THOSE days.

You're probably familiar with the breed.

Nothing seemed to please her and she was throwing punches at anything that got within her arm span. My attempts at stemming the flow of hostility were, suffice it to say, unappreciated. She had been pushing my buttons so much that it was a miracle she hadn't short-circuited them.

In order to keep myself from blowing my top {any more than I already had}, I scrambled to my set of scriptures on the kitchen table and flipped 'em open. "ANY scripture will do," I thought. "Help me out, Lord."

As usual, the Lord was more than happy to lend a hand and pointed me in the direction of Helaman 5:12:

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it us upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

I had previously written a handful of other scriptures in the margin of that verse, and so I flipped to them, too. Luke 6: 47-49 is a story that most people are probably familiar with. . . think "the wise man built his house upon a rock". :)

"Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."

 
{photo source}


A few things stood out to me this time around that I don't remember ever giving conscious thought to before. Probably because I was feeling like the 'storm of Haggatha' was beating vehemently against my foundation and I wondered if I was going to crack and crumble.

For starters, the first man "digged deep" and poured his foundation way down in the ground. The second man, however, just plopped his house on top of soil and called it good. He probably didn't want to put in the time or effort required to dig a deep hole and pour a foundation {that also had to cure before his home could begin to be built}.

Do we sometimes find ourselves hesitant to put in the time and effort required to build the sure foundation of a personal relationship with {and testimony of} Christ? And once we have built our foundation, do we have the faith in its integrity to build our house on it, or did we skip steps to save time/effort and therefore suspect it will crumble at the first test of its strength?

A testimony of Jesus Christ isn't something that can be gained in a hurry when the storm clouds start to appear. First, we need to DIG DEEP into our souls and find out what is really important to us; what we really believe. After we dig deep and know what we're about, then we can start the slow and steady process of pouring a foundation. We do that by trying our best to live the commandments and keep the covenants we've made through baptism and temple ordinances. In short, we try to be great people every single day. Our foundation is strengthened and "cured" as we come to understand and trust more fully the Plan of Happiness set forth by Heavenly Father.

As our lives progress and we marry, have kids, get a dog, take out the trash, go to school, start a career, cook dinner, etc, we build our house. All of those little things we do every day build our house. It doesn't matter if your house is a mansion with four different wings or if it's still in its "shack" stage. The foundation is what really matters. If your foundation is built on the Rock, our Redeemer, then your house will be blessed and will continue to expand over the course of eternity.

. . . 

The other thing that stood out to me was that the storm "beat vehemently" on both of those guys. Just because the one took time to build a sturdy foundation doesn't mean he was exempt from trial. You've probably heard the scripture that points out that "your Father which is in heaven. . . sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." {Matt 5:45}

If you find yourself up to your eyeballs in adversity, it's not necessarily because you're unrighteous. I promise that the Lord doesn't hate your guts. . . though sometimes it might feel that way. :) He's probably doing the same thing to you that He's doing to me: teaching us something. Or maybe He's doing what this entire life is geared toward: testing us out and seeing if we'll choose Him over that other guy. Are we going to stick to the straight and narrow path or wander off into the bushes?

"Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. . . And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." {Ephesians 3:16;19}

So, dig deep when you feel tested to your limit. Remember the sure foundation on which you built your house and trust in it. And if you haven't built one yet? Well, then, git-r-done. Don't put it off because there are storms coming in each of our lives and we need to be able to withstand them instead of being "[dragged] down to the gulf of misery and endless wo". Because that doesn't sound very fun. Not at all.

And I don't know about ya'll, but I try to avoid wo whenever I can; endless or otherwise. ;)