“That steel I-beam sure looks strong.” My husband and I had just awakened this morning in the unfinished basement of my daughter’s two-story house.
“It looks strong, but in a fire, wood would only char. That steel is like hard wax–it would melt. A beam of several pine 2x12s nailed and glued together would maintain its structural integrity, even in the flames.”
“So even though the steel looks more stable, wood is better in a fire.
“Yup.”
There’s an image. What’s our foundation made of? Do we look strong or are we really strong? Are we strong in ourselves or strong in the Lord? And how can we know, except in the fire?
Paul says, in 1Corinthians 3, there is one foundation–Jesus Christ. Maybe in our everyday lives, we’re not so aware of our foundations. We manage a busy household, we perform well in a challenging job, and/or we get A’s in graduate school.
But what happens when a child gets leukemia, a new boss fires us, or we sustain a closed-head injury? Or even the lesser fires of the flu, a critical boss, or a bout of the blues?
What do we rest on then? What supports our weight in those flames? It’s not our good looks. It is the surety of that Jesus-beam that undergirds us. He is the foundation that survives every fire.
Lord, Isaiah 33:6 says you are “a sure foundation for our times.” May we rest our weight on you.