Refuge Update

Foundations - Requesting God's Guidance

Last year we began talking about our prayer life being like the roots of a tree.  They are so important for the tree to grow.  Without the roots, indeed there would be no tree!  The root system of a tree extends out even further than the crown (branches) of the tree.  Without a solid root system to soak up the nutrients from the soil, a tree will die. 

Well the same thing is true of a foundation of a house.  Without the foundation, there would be no house!  The house would crumble and fall to the ground when the first storm rolled into town.  If you think about it, the foundation is really the most important part of the house.  You don’t see it or even think about while you’re in the house, but it is the most important.  Without the it the house would just fall down on your head. 

In college I studied architecture.  And there we learned about parts of the foundation.  Well one of the things that you learn is that the footings, which are part of the foundation, are much wider than the actual wall.  Usually they are at least twice as wide as the foundation wall that extends up from them.  So it looks something like this…(draw the footing and foundation wall).  The footing is typically made of concrete with steel rebar reinforcements and the taller and heavier the structure is that you are going to build on it, the thicker, wider, and more steel you need to support the structure. 

Same thing is true of prayer.  Prayer is the foundation of the Christian life.  It is the way in which we talk to God to express our gratitude, concerns, and requests.  It’s one of the means by which we hear God’s voice and are able to understand and discern His ways for our lives.  In fact, you could say that without prayer, the Christian, like the tree or the house, will eventually fall down and die.  And the more the Christian does (like the house getting bigger) the greater the foundation of prayer needs to be. 

The House built on the Sand

The bible teaches us this very thing.  That a house built on a strong foundation, will stand against the toughest of storms.  Turn in your bibles to Matthew 7:24-27.  Who will read those verses for us?

Matthew 7:24-27  ²⁴ "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.  ²⁵ "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.  ²⁶ "And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand.  ²⁷ "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall."

Leaning Tower of Pisa

You all know the leaning tower of Pisa?  It is one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world.  The Italian bell tower’s initial construction started in 1173.  It began to tilt during the construction phase.  The tilt was caused by an inadequate foundation on a ground that was too soft on one side to support the structures tremendous weight, thus causing the tower to lean to one side.  Since then, many things have been done to the foundation and structure to support it in its leaning state. 

The problem was the foundation was only 3 meters deep (about 9 feet) on a soft soil (like sand) and the structure above ground was much taller and too heavy for such a small foundation.  This is often what happens in our Christian lives.  The building gets too large for the foundation.  We get so busy with life and activities and friends and techno-gadgets that we our prayer life can’t support it all.  So like the tower of Pisa, we begin to topple. 

I’ve shared with some of you the story about the orphanage in Honduras.  When my buddy Jon and I got there we began work on a structure that was nearing completion.  The exterior walls and foundation were already in place.  As time when on, during the dry season we began to notice cracks starting to form in the walls.  When we dug down through the concrete slab and down to the foundation, we found a very inadequate structure on top of clay soil.  As the season changed the soil would expand and contract and the foundation was not strong enough to support the shifting.  This caused the cracks.  In an area where they experience earthquakes, this could be a huge problem.  Our Job quickly become to dig down beneath the current foundation of every exterior and interior wall at four locations in each room to lay new foundation under the old. 

Prayer should be the solid foundation that holds up everything we do.  From school, to family, to sports, to church activities and evangelism, prayer is the key component to it all.  In Colossians 4:2 Paul tells the church of Colossae to “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;”  DEVOTE YOURSELVES TO PRAY.  Have we done this in our own lives?  Do we do this at the refuge?