hymns – The Zion Chronicle

How Firm a Foundation

I woke up this morning with my brain making up variations on “The wise man built his house upon the rock.” (ex. “The wise man lived his life above reproach” or “The wise man spent his time above the fray.”) I really don’t know why I was thinking of that, but it fit right in with the lesson in Sunday school today about the foundation that we build our lives upon. One of the great things that Sister Monson did with the lesson was that she started off playing How Firm a Foundation while the class sang verses 1, 2, & 7. I love that hymn – like many that have extra verses written outside the music, we don’t sing the later verses nearly enough.

As we were talking about what it means to build our lives on a foundation of Christ I realized that our real foundation in life, no matter what we might profess, is the thing that never gives when push comes to shove. It reminded me of a discussion that took place on the blog of a friend in early 2007:

The key is to remember that there can be only one rock upon which to build your knowledge. Everything else must be window-dressing. . . Even your rock must be open for reexamination because if it can’t withstand a challenge it isn’t much of a rock.

If the foundation that we claim to be built on can be shifed by the challenges that we face then it is more sand than rock.

I was up very early this morning talking to Laura about foundations. We were specifically talking about the foundation that we are laying for our children which will affect them throughout their lives. We also talked about the foundations that we received from our parents. As I thought more about it I recognized the foundation of our government – the Constitution. Then I remembered the words to the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” which remind me that the foundation of my faith and the faith of other Latter Day Saints, as well as the faith of Christians in general, is (and ought to be) firmly founded in the excellent word of Christ.

During the discussion this morning I realized how vital a good foundation is in any endeavor. In our lives, Laura and I have both noticed that any strength we have comes from the strength of our foundations. Wherever there was weakness in the foundations we gained during our formative years we find that we are constantly struggling to compensate while we try to fix the underlying foundational layer. It is obvious why we are so adamant about trying to give our children the strongest foundations we can give them.

My later reflections had me thinking about how the strength of our nation comes from our Constitution. Where there is weakness in our country we can generally trace the origins of that weakness either to a weakness in the Constitution (which we can fix through the amendment process) or to our society contradicting or misinterpreting the Constitution.

As for spiritual foundations, our faith can never be stronger than the foundation for that faith. Although the word of Christ is a strong foundation we must be careful that we are not contradicting that word, or misrepresenting it in our lives. If we are we will find that we cannot enjoy the true strength of that foundation.