Firm Foundations

WALKING ON STEADY GROUND

There's nothing worse than feeling unsteady under your feet.  I do like walking in the Lake District in the UK, in my opinion, it's one of the most beautiful places in Britain.  It's a walkers paradise where you can find many wonderful places to visit and hike or fell walk. My husband and I have done a few fell walks in our time and the views from the top can be absolutely breathtaking.  The photo below is from this year at the top of Haystacks, the lake you can see below is Lake Buttermere.  However, some paths can be quite traitorous, either they are requiring steep climbs or have large drops at the side, or they feel unsteady under your feet. If the path has too much loose shale underfoot you can easily slip, especially on the way down!  You therefore have to tread carefully so not to fall down and hurt yourself.  Unsteady ground and unsteady foundations are dangerous, accidents can easily happen so we need to ensure we find more solid ground to walk on. 

One verse in the bible stands out to me when we think on this topic in Matthew 7 24-2: 

 “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. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

When we are up against it and things are going wrong, are we going to collapse or will we be able to endure and make it through?  With God's help, who is the solid rock we can stand on, yes we can!  When the storms on life hit we will have enough strength to carry on when the teachings of Jesus remain deep in our hearts and our minds; we can stand firm and not collapse! Another verse that comes to mind is from Ephesians 6 v 13 - Therefore, put on the complete armour of God, so that you will be able to successfully resist and stand your ground in the evil day of danger, and having done everything that the crisis demands, to stand firm in your place, fully prepared, immovable, victorious. 

Moving onto another place in the world Italy.  Have you ever wondered why the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tilted? The construction of the tower started in 1173 AD with a 3-meter-deep slab, and on top of it, they started building the walls, when it reached the 3rd floor, it was noticed that it was starting to lean. We are looking at a 14,500-ton tower built on a 3 meter-deep foundation resting on sand and silt soil! After detecting the slope, the engineers then built the walls of the remaining floors so that the floor height on the sinking side was greater than the height on the other side.  Unfortunately though, this caused the tower to lean even more due to the extra weight on the larger side of the tower, the foundations suffered greater subsidence. 

The construction lasted 199 years and due to clay soil the tower, although leaning, as we know, did not ever collapse. However the tower did close in 1990 for repairs to the foundations where 361 holes were dug, that were 40 meters deep and they injected 90 tons of concrete into the soil through these holes, as it was calculated by modern engineers that left untouched the tower would have eventually collapsed, if it reached an inclination more than 5.44 degrees. They could have made the tower vertical but they didn't want it to lose its fame. 

The leaning tower had a fault in it's foundation, the foundation did not go deep enough into the solid earth to ensure it would stand perfectly straight and safe!  The engineers of the day tried to make up for the error but the building then tilted.  It reminds me of our own lives, we can often feel slightly off balance, we can feel shaken by circumstances.  What are we going to build of lives upon? What core values are we going to cling to? How will we have a sure footing and a firm place to feel secure?  God can give us all these things when we look to him to help us.  When we look to the bible and see the values of our creator.  We can know that they are good and secure to always stand on.  We can feel certainty and feel secure in a God that loves us, because he is the God that created us and knows us best. 

Lv Caroline x