Better Foundation

 

Who can resist a huge pile of sand? No matter our age, it calls to the child within us, beckoning us to forget everything except the thrill of climbing up to the top of the mountain.

When I was a boy, a popular soap opera began with the announcement: “Like sands through an hour glass, so are the days of our lives.” Sand serves as a metaphor for life in many ways. There are shifting sands. The wind blows and scatters the sand. There are “sinking sands” in an old gospel hymn I loved singing as I grew up in church.

Henry a David Thoreau writes, “Time is like a handful of sand, the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.” The more birthdays one has, the more one knows the truth of these words. Like the beautiful white sands of a beach, life is always on the move, constantly changing and shifting. Beautiful, but never static.

Jesus taught that “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Sand is beautiful on a beach. Sand is fun in a volleyball court. Sand works well as a metaphor in poetry and song and soap operas. But the nature of sand, what makes it all of these things and more, is its ability to shift. We need a better foundation upon which to build our lives. We need the rock of faith. We need the stability of true friendship. We need the solid ground that comes from loving and being loved. Then we can enjoy the beauty of the sand.

Peace.