Wednesday night the pastor was sharing the parable about the two builders. One built on the rock and one on the sand. You are familiar with the events that unfolded. Both start with hearing the word. Both acted. One acted by diligent effort. One took the casual approach. One survived disaster. One was destroyed.
My mind wanders when people speak. I am open to this being the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It helps me apply what I am hearing.
One of the thoughts that came to my mind was the observations I have made of a creek in the high Sierras. It too has places where there are rock surfaces and places where the sand builds up. We seem to be encouraged to build on the rock, not the sand but as I thought about the rush of water in the spring melt that seemed counter productive.
Sand piles up where the water slows down. It gets deepest where the current is the least violent. Where you have rock you have hard driving floods that sweep all before it. It would seem to me that the safest place to build would be where the sand is deepest because there would be the least chance of violence and opposition.
Have you ever heard, “You can run, but you cannot hide.”
The point is foundations, not oppression. Oppression will come. Persecution will happen. Temptations will rear their ugly heads. You may try to live in the calm waters but the floods will come. Survival doesn’t depend on staying out of the conflict but in having the right foundations.
We are coming to the end of a time of peace and complacency in the United States for believers. Followers of Jesus are being attacked and killed in Nigeria and Egypt. They have been hounded out of Iraq. They are discriminated against in most of the world. They have been forced onto the rock. We Americans have been living on the sand. In Europe few serious believers remain. I hope that in the coming flood there are enough of us left to be a faithful remnant.
Maybe that is the value of missionaries coming home to report. It isn’t to tell us what a wonderful job they are doing spreading the word but to remind us that there are parts of the world that are living on the cutting edge of the conflict between righteousness and evil. The Church is alive, even if our part is asleep.
homo unius libri
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