Building Solid Foundations

A couple of weeks ago we managed to blag a free visit to Centre Parcs for the day from some of our lovely friends. Whilst we were there we were swimming in the massive subtropical dome and chilling with our friends. At one point my six year old daughter asked if she could go with me down the outdoor rapids which run fast, dipping and diving into little waterfalls all the way down the outside of the pool area. The problem was that she couldn't yet swim and had to wear an inflatable vest which those pesky life guards would be sure to pick up on and chuck us out. As I was trying to explain this all to my little girl, a random thought got stuck in my head: "We long for the excitement of the rapids, but we don't even know how to swim".

This phrase seems to sum up for me so many of the issues and challenges young people face today in church life. They are easily excited by adrenaline fuelled issues like healings, miracles and amazing signs of power but they are stumped by basic stuff like bible reading, prayer and the simplicity of knowing Jesus for real. They long for the excitement of the rapids, but they have not yet learned how to swim. In other words the foundations of their life are not in place.

A Foundation is that which holds any structure in place. It could be the roots of a tree, the concrete slabs at the bottom of a sky scraper or in symbolic terms the way in which we construct our lives. Our personal foundations are the ideas and behaviours that we build our life on and these are the basic building blocks by which we stand strong or fall flat on our faces.

Over the next few posts I am going to look at some of things that the Bible says should be our foundation for life. It may even surprise you when you really look at what it is like to start to build a life following Jesus. We will look at the "page 1" things that we need to get to grips with in order to be able to stand on the rock while the world keeps rolling...