I planned to brave the waves, not be knocked over by them. I wanted to get my feet wet, and not have to change my clothes when I was done. This was a morning walk on the beach, not a leap into the ocean.

I examined the tracts left behind in the sand by the tide and stood just past their edges. I bent at the knees, planted my feet a shoulder’s width apart, and dug my heels and toes deeply into the sand. I was ready to take on the incoming tide.

I’m sixty-three years old in real life, but a child on the beach—a total newbie at playing in the sand and waves. The sensation of the sand slowly drifting out to sea from beneath my feet was something I’d never experienced. I was so fascinated, that I didn’t fully understand my foundation was being washed away.

I caught myself before I fell on my face, but I still got a lot wetter than I intended in my clumsy efforts to regain my balance. I’d chosen my foundation foolishly.

Shifting Sands

Feet planted in the sand are never as sure as feet planted on solid ground. Jesus used this powerful metaphor when he told us to make the Word of God the foundation for building our lives. I love Eugene Peterson’s take on it in The Message.

These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying—quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.

MATTHEW 7:24-29 (MSG)

The Best Teaching Ever

The crowd burst into applause—even after Jesus suggested that some of them might be stupid. They probably thought of themselves as the smart ones in the illustration, and looked around them to find the stupid carpenters among the others in their midst.

We do that, don’t we? Jesus warned, “Don’t just hear my words and call them the best teaching you’ve ever heard. Work them into your life. Build on them. Live by them.”

We hear him. We applaud. We call his words the best teaching we’ve ever heard. Then we walk out on the beach and dig our toes into the sand. And we’re all wet.

Come Alongside

There are waves all around these days. People I know, love, and respect are adamant that they know the truth—but the truth they stand on conflicts with the firm truth of others I know, love, and respect. All sides are equally adamant. The conflict isn’t between those who reject Jesus and those who follow him. These are believers in disagreement with one another over what is true and right. And I feel the sand slipping away under my feet as I try to seek God’s truth in it all.

Is anyone else on the beach with me?

All I know to do is lean on the Word of Christ. To let it dwell in me richly, and let his peace rule in my heart.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

COLOSSIANS 3:12-17

Who’s in? Let’s put on love. Let’s speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Let’s share our thankful hearts. Let’s find our strong foundation, and build on it.

Travelling in Grace

Christi