Almost daily I listen as someone tells me how their life is incomplete…or worse…it’s falling apart. Peace and happiness have disappeared...again. As we talk I often discover that this is not the first time they have felt this way…it’s become a cycle. Often it is very obvious that there was no foundation to what they had established…they build and rebuild Sand Castles.
Sand Castles are amazing in beauty and easily crumble.
There is this amazing reoccurring situation where some people will do a lot of work putting together a life that looks great…they get into what looks like a great relationship, or finally land the right job… or maybe they manage to get the right house or the great car or maybe all of the above…everything that has the look of the really good life. As a matter of fact their life landscaping is so good it takes a really perceptive person to see that all this is happening without a proper foundation….then the winds of life began to blow…disappointment, unfulfilled expectations, sadness, betrayal, loss…the image they worked so hard to create begins to fade…the walls began to shake…the rain begins to fall…the sand begins to move… and the house begins to fall.
Sand Castles…are built for a moment of praise…not to withstand the coming storms.
With things or people…taking the time to do things the right way for the right reasons is never what we want to hear when we are in the “wanting” state…and we even know…deep down…that it is proven to bring a much better return. And, peace and happiness is not the same thing as feeling good today…they are the state of a mind and heart that has been cultivated and nurtured through the wanted and unwanted things of life. They are the sum of many decisions that required the rock solid foundational material of time, patience, endurance, and a trust that anything worth having in my life is probably not going to be attained quickly.
Sand castles…require hard work and a unique artistic ability…and although beautiful…they will not last.
There was a foolish man who built his house on the sand and when the rains came and the winds beat against that house his house fell. There was a wise man who built his house on a rock and when the rains came and the winds blew and beat against that house…that house stood.
Jesus
