There is a lullaby I always sing to Camden before his naps and before bedtime. I sing it so often that when he hears it, he relaxes more and I’m able to get him to calm down for sleep.
One day as I was sitting in my rocker with him, singing the song, I realized how often I really do sing it. It has been part of our routine since he was about six weeks old. Then I started to think about how it would go if someday, when he’s older, Camden would ask me why I’ve always sung the same song, and what the words mean.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
And the rains came falling down
The rains came down and the floods came up
The rains came down and the floods came up
The rains came down and the floods came up
And the house on the sand went 'SPLAT'
The wise man built his house upon The Rock
The wise man built his house upon The Rock
The wise man built his house upon The Rock
And the rains came falling down
The rains came down and the floods came up
The rains came down and the floods came up
The rains came down and the floods came up
And the house on The Rock stood firm.
What am I really trying to tell my son through these words, apart from just advising him where a suitable location would be to construct a house?
What we’re looking at here is more than simply a house in itself. A house (or more specifically a home) is your dwelling place. It’s the place where you live and breathe and grow. It’s the center, the place you always return to. It’s warm, inviting, comforting - a solid shelter from the storm. There you put your trust, you build your hopes and your dreams. Like the old phrase says: “Home is where the heart is.”
So where is it that we ‘build our home’? Where have we placed our hearts, our comfort, our shelter? Where do we content ourselves to dwell?
If we build up our hopes and dreams and comforts upon the sand, which is the ever shifting, slipping, and sliding pleasures of this earthly existence, our house will surely crumble. At the first sign of rain, of the troubles and hardships, we will panic. Despair and tears fall from the sky, pounding the unstable roof over our heads. Failure, fear, and all our sins will rise like floodwaters, first covering our feet, climbing up our legs, and finally creeping up over our heads. The foundation of our doomed house will find no purchase on our earthly desires and idols. Foolishly we watch as our center, our shelter, our dangerous dwelling slips away under a rising tide of trials and difficulty! We stand there with eyes wide; how could we have trusted that would be safe? How could we have put all our hope in something so earthly, so fleeting? How could we have been content to dwell on something that is not eternal, not of God?
We must build our house upon The Rock.
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” -Psalm 18:2 KJV
“O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” -Psalm 95:1 KJV
The place where we dwell, where we hope and dream, where we confide during the most terrifying and threatening storms of this life, must be the arms of our Heavenly Father. Everything must be built upon the rock solid foundation of His love and salvation for us. There can be no other base for our home. There can be no other shelter for our heart from the rains of despair and the floodwaters of the Devil’s attempts to drown us. God is our only fortress, our only strength, our only solid high tower where we can safely dwell with our children in love, happiness, and thankfulness to Him.
Truly, how wise we will be and how firm we can stand when our houses are built upon The Rock.
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