Chapter
6
Know your foundation
....so after the battle you are still standing firm
What we learn early in life becomes our history, ....starts building our worldview. From birth we learn from parents and others, ....who already have their own worldviews. We learn by seeing, hearing, feeling, ....then reading and more formal learning.
At some point in our maturing, critical thinking kicks in, and we begin wondering about what we think we know. ....We need to prove what is right and wrong for ourselves. ....This is all quite normal growing up stuff. It's the beginnings of owning our worldview, ....whether or not we have any clue what that word means. SMILE.
Then one day, we realize we don't know everything. Haven't seen everything. The world is bigger than we ever thought! .....Experiences in younger years made big impressions, ....and then years later we "see" and "understand" more clearly. For example, let me tell you a story....
In the early 1950s, a little boy from a small Wisconsin town was on vacation with his parents in New York City. He was awestruck looking up at buildings so tall they touched the clouds. ....Following his parents, he walked onto an elevator for the first time ever. It was a strange feeling when doors closed and that "small box room" began moving upward. Think we changed boxes a couple of times, and kept going up, ....and up.
When elevator doors finally opened at the top of the world, he walked out into those clouds. ....Seeing his world for the first time from 1,250 feet. Building tops went on and on in every direction. And on streets below, cars looked like scurrying ants. .....Memory of my world's view is still vivid.
And today, ....I wonder how deep is the foundation under that Empire State building? SMILE. ....I know, seems like a leap, but I've traveled a lot of miles since that day, when viewing my world from what was then the world's tallest building. ....Seems important to know about its foundation, ....because it is still standing.
Why am I telling this story?
To ask some questions....
What is your worldview's foundation built on? How deep is that foundation?
How are you nurturing and shaping your worldview, because it is a living, growing thing?
Built on a Solid Foundation
Like the construction worker in this photo, ....if you are going to hang out in the clouds, working and doing life, ....SMILE.... you want a good, solid foundation under you. So let's talk about it.
Before constructing the Empire State Building above ground up to its 102 story height, the builders dug the foundation down to bedrock — that solid, consolidated, hard rock beneath surface materials, such as soil, gravel or sand. Without its deep foundation down to bedrock, that building would not still be standing.
SMILE.... And, of course, you are already ahead of me on this story.... A Biblical worldview goes "beneath the surface" of your life ....and starts building "who you are" ....and "Whose you are" ....up from the BEDROCK OF JESUS.
Why Jesus? Because....
Growing up, I remember asking my mother, "Why do I have to...?" or "Why this or that...?" Sometimes her reply was simply "Because I said so" or "Because that's the way it is." SMILE. Some of you know what I'm talking about.
So, ...."Why Jesus?" Because God said so ....for us to have a personal relationship with Him. This is His plan. His forever plan. His only plan....
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."
— John 14:6 NLT
In what is called The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus taught critically important things about doing life in the Kingdom of God. ....It's the stuff our worldview's perspectives and attitudes should be built on. At the end of His monumental sermon, Jesus concluded with this admonition....
"Anyone who listens to My teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house (THEIR LIFE) 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.”
But anyone who hears My teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house (THEIR LIFE) on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash."
— Matthew 7:24-27 NLT
Jesus encouraged His disciples at their last supper together ....the night before His crucifixion, saying...
“If you love me, obey My commandments (TRUTHS). And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it isn’t looking for Him and doesn’t recognize Him. But you know Him, because He lives with you now and later will be in you.
....continuing....
"No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you."
— John 14:15-20 NLT
Jesus is the Word (John 1:1-5,14), ....THE "bedrock foundation" on which we build our lives, ....so "after the battle we will still be standing firm." (Ephesians 6:13)
*Credits: New York skyline photo from loving-newyork / Jesus at Last Supper image anonymous
