Foundations

This Thought for the Week has been written by Peter Hodson.
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Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. (Matthew 7:24-25)

The tallest building in the UK is the Shard, standing at some 309.6m high. The geological makeup beneath it is a mixture of various soil types, including clay, silt, sand and gravel - not good for building anything on!   The 100+ pile foundations, each around 1.5m in diameter, had to go some 53m down to reach bedrock and around 700 lorry loads of concrete had to be poured into the ground to stabilise the soil.  Much of this work went on relatively unseen and was time-consuming. If the ground could speak, it would probably cry out with the enormous upheaval and agonising boring of the piles!  However, the result was a firm base for what was once the tallest building in Europe and has won a number of awards for architectural excellence.  
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The Shard, beautiful as it is,  is an earthly building and it will have a limited lifespan.  God wants to make something far more beautiful - something that will last for all eternity - your life in the image of Jesus Christ!  The preparation work, like the foundations for the Shard, is mostly unseen, often painful, and takes time.  The writer to the Hebrews said:

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.  (Hebrews 12:11)

We need to let God’s word of truth bore into the unstable and ugly parts within us of sin and self, and let his transforming love pour into the innermost part of our lives.  The concrete of the unchanging word of God sinking deep within our hearts will bring His stability, peace, joy and true freedom.  He is making a building that cannot be shaken by circumstances, moods or feelings and will last forever.
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Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe
(Hebrews 12:28)
 
In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord
(Ephesians 2:19– 21)

Peter Hodson