Your earth will shake …

In my last post (“How to help Haiti …”), I briefly shared that I had experienced the 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco bay area several years ago, and then wrote of the needs in Haiti after its recent devastating 7.0 earthquake.

In the Loma Prieta earthquake, 63 people died. It is estimated that at least 50,000 — and possibly hundreds of thousands — of people have lost their lives in the recent earthquake in Haiti. Both areas were impacted with about the same amount of ground-shaking energy, so why the drastic difference in the loss of life?

Building codes.

Freedom-loving people cherish having as few rules as possible, and many are proud at their efforts in breaking the rules. But rules — or standards — have both a place and value.

The San Francisco bay area is known to be a place that is seimically active. People living in the bay area are used to quakes registering in the 4-5 range … they sleep right through them! The reason they can sleep well when the ground shakes is because building codes are enforced to help ensure structures are built to endure the seismic activity of the region. Standards have been put in place to protect the local citizens from a known and common danger.

In Haiti, however, you will find a lack of building codes or enforced standards in construction. The result of this lack of standard is tragic when the earth shakes violently, as we are now witnessing.

The difference in living and dying, in standing or falling, has to do with how the structures are built.

The same goes for life. The difference in having life or losing it, in overcoming sin and the things of this world or succumbing to them, has to do with how we build our lives. Jesus gave us a “building code” so that we might withstand the forces we will face, and make no mistake about it: at some time in your life, your “ground” will shake! Jesus put it this way, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows …” (John 16:33a). Given that fact, Jesus gives us a way to be able to withstand those “trials and sorrows” … those things that shake our world … in Matthew 7:24-27:

“24 Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 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. 26 But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

What’s the difference between those who experience difficult, even tragic, “trials and sorrows” and are overwhelmed, and those who face the same experiences yet overcome and even conquer? The difference is the foundation for their lives. Like the house built on sand, those who do not have Christ as the foundation for their lives will fall to the things of this world that buffet their lives. But those who build their lives on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and His word will be able to withstand the storms of life because their foundation is solid.

Jesus put it this way in that same passage quoted previously from John 16:33, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Having a building code isn’t any good if it’s not enforced. It won’t protect anyone unless executed in the actual construction of structures. The same with the “building code” for life. We can believe that Jesus is the only foundation for life, but our lives will not have the strength and endurance that comes from that truth unless we actually make Jesus Christ the literal foundation on which our lives are lived every single day.

What is the actual foundation on which your life as a whole is built? What is the foundation from which you live your life on a daily basis? If the storms of life have been buffeting you around, take shelter in Christ and trust Him to be the bedrock on which you can face whatever may come your way.

Scotty