FOUNDATIONS

  He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure (Isaiah 33:6). 

We were at the beginning of week #4 of our sojourn in the Similkameen, and it didn’t look like we’d accomplished much. Passersby glancing up at our lot from Pincushion Trail would have considered it vacant. BUT that’s because Rick had been laboring on the cottage foundation, and you usually can’t see foundations. Foundations underlay everything that you CAN see later, both with buildings and with lives. 

I’ve been receiving an education in construction as I hold the ends of boards, read the bubble in the level, and watch cement scٰhlop out of the mixer. And wow – there are a multitude of finicky but necessary steps involved in laying a solid and dependable foundation. For those who haven’t been witness to the process, here’s a quick summary with illustrative photos: 

1) Create a piece of flat ground –  in our case, since we are building on a hillside, this required a big machine. 

2) Make sure the ground is solid, packed firm. 

3) Build the forms for the concrete footing (6" deep x 18" wide) according to the footprint of your building. Make sure the tops of the forms are exactly level using a laser level and a spirit level. The spirit level is the hand-held kind which features a liquid-filled vial that measures against the horizontal and vertical planes of the earth. (In other words, NOT a human-made reference point!)

4) Set steel rebar inside the forms to give the concrete more strength.

5) Pour and smooth the concrete, requiring another big truck. Insert vertical rebar while it is wet to provide continuity with the wall that will come next. 

6) When it hardens, this footing serves as the level and square baseline upon which every other part of the building relies. Strip the forms off.

7) Build the forms for a grade beam/basement/crawl space wall (24” high x 8” wide) centered on top of the footing. 

8) Level the tops of these forms and make sure they are square. Then brace them all around with 2"x4"s.

9) Set more steel rebar (2 sets) inside these forms. 

10) Pour, skreed and smooth the top of the concrete wall.

11) Set bolts at intervals to attach the floor base. Strip off all the forms.

12) Bolt 2”x6”s to the concrete all around the top of the wall. This becomes the “mud sill” that the floor and framed walls of the building will sit on. 

And there it is (by the end of week #4) – a foundation that will ensure the building has a level floor and right angles for corners, does not lean to the right or left, is strong enough to hold all contents steady, and protects all that is within for years to come. Okay, it doesn’t take a literature teacher to know that there is an extended metaphor for building a life here. Plus, the Bible already has this one presented pretty well from a couple of different perspectives. 

Biblical metaphors and figures of speech are my favorites because I know they illuminate deep truths. Metaphors, after all, are designed to help people understand important truths by comparing something that is unfamiliar with something that is familiar. Jesus showed himself to be a master of the metaphor when he explained spiritual reality to his non-academic disciples through parables. One of the things he taught them is that everyone who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who dug down deep and laid his foundation on rock, and when the rains came and the winds blew and beat against the house, it did not fall because it had its foundation on a sure footing (Luke 6:48 & Matt 7:24-25). Paul later adopted Jesus’ metaphor, saying that followers of the way were “God’s building” and that by God’s grace, he was working to lay a foundation as a wise builder. “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 3:9-11). He used the building metaphor yet again with the Ephesians, proclaiming them members of God’s household, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone,” in whom the whole building is joined together (Eph. 2:19-21). I am grateful to my parents for the solid foundation that was laid for the building of my life. I am reminded almost daily that the peace I walk in, despite the challenges, risks and uncertainties that are part and parcel of this venture, comes from the fact that I stand on a strong and true footing, just like our little cottage resting on the side of this mountain. 

The disconcerting reality for many of us parents and grandparents, though, is the knowledge that our children and grandchildren have either been convinced that the foundation their early lives were built upon is faulty or their lives lack any kind of secure base from which to navigate the world. The institutional church must bear some blame for this failing; it has not always carefully measured the elements of the foundation against the real truth of the gospel but allowed human attempts to maintain power or comfort to throw it off level. We ourselves perhaps haven’t lived our lives before our children according to the blueprint Christ provided for us. But the most significant force that puts current generations at risk, I think, is the influence of a culture that has increased its efforts to wipe God’s story out of the “social imaginary.”ٰ¹  We know that the human will, enticed by the powers and principalities of evil, has been rebelling against God’s authority from the beginning. But up until fairly recently in North America (the 1950’s let’s say), there was a sizable contingent of the population who were familiar with and nominally accepted a Christian worldview. Not so now. Children in the 21st century spend 13+ years of their lives immersed in an education system and bombarded by cultural influences that make no mention of God except in a pejorative sense. They live in a postmodern, post-structural, post-Christian society which not only leaves them without a foundation or standard against which to measure ideas and ideologies, but without any guardrails to keep them safe. They are taught there is no such thing as objective truth; there is only each individual’s internal sense of truth. There is no sacred order upon which to build their lives; they are at the mercy of their own ever-changing emotional and psychological states. Unfortunately, we know that a building without a solid and dependable foundation will not stand. 

All the way back in Isaiah, the Sovereign Lord said, “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic” (Isaiah 28:16). I love this – it tells me there is no need to panic! Instead, I ask myself, “What can I do to ensure that the lives of my children and grandchildren are built on an unshakeable and sustainable foundation?”

¹ "social imaginary" is a concept used by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor to refer to the many beliefs, practices, normative expectations and implicit assumptions that members of a society share and that shape their daily lives. Referenced in Trueman, Carl. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (2020).