We recently returned to Belize after a year away (really more than two years, but had a brief time back in early 2021). We had family looking after our home, and they did an excellent job. In fact, they had caught the track of some termites headed into our house and had dealt with them. However, just a couple days after we arrived here, Clifford made an important discovery. The cement flooring of our house has a long crack. We have been aware of this crack, but we did not realize it’s insidious side effects: hidden access to the lumber in our house for extra clever termites. It is relatively easy to see the pathway of termites trying to attack from outside the house, but some of those nasty bugs had found their way underground to the crack in the cement, undetectable to the casual observer. All of the exterior walls of our house are made of cement block, and even the bathroom walls inside have the same construction. But, the only other interior walls, the ones that frame our closet, are made of 2 x 4 pine lumber. And pine lumber is soft and delicious for the termites. They burrowed their way through the crack in the cement and up into the irresistible pine boards. Although the caretakers of our home had faithfully checked for termites around the exterior of the house, the crack in the foundation allowed hidden intruders; intruders that were only detected when the owner of the house tapped into the wood.
When Clifford suspected a termite infestation, the outside of the boards looked good: nothing appeared to be amiss. But, when he tapped into the boards, they crumbled into dust, their interior completely eaten away. Of course, he has since been on a quest to remove all the damaged boards and figure out a long-term solution to the entry point: the cracked foundation.
As I thought on this, applications to my own life appeared. Psalms 11:3 says, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Scripture tells us that Christ is our Cornerstone, the rock upon which our lives should be built. If the foundations of our lives, our grounding beliefs, are not firmly set on that Cornerstone, then they have a fatal weakness… one that will allow the foundations of our walk with God, our marriages, our relationships to be compromised. To the outside eye, we may appear to be “okay,” walking through life as a Christian, but those imperceptible cracks in our faith give the enemy a place to slip in, unnoticed, and eat away our hope, our joy, our confidence. After all, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Before we know it, our lives, in various aspects, begin to crumble around us. How important it is for me to walk daily in the Spirit, to ground myself in God’s Word, allow Him to reveal His truth to me in fresh ways, and search my heart for faults in my belief system; not so that He can bring condemnation, but so that He can shore up the foundations and keep me secure in Him.
How are your foundations today?
Rejoicing in His love 