This video sounds interesting. When I was a child I had a hunger for adventure and finding cool treasurers and as an adult I am lucky I was able to visit Israel and see some ancient remains of things for myself. But thankfully there are some things captured on video that you don’t need to visit to see and you can learn about a rare ancient sarcophagus from home. It was said to be found at a building site but was unfortunately damaged when the contractors tried to move it from where they found it instead of waiting for the professionals to do it correctly.
This made me think of something else. There was a story Yeshua told his follows about the importance of having a strong foundation to build on. “So, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on bedrock. The rain fell, the rivers flooded, the winds blew and beat against that house, but it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the rivers flooded, the wind blew and beat against that house, and it collapsed — and its collapse was horrendous!” Matthew 7:24-27
Now you might be wondering how on earth could you find any related thoughts in your mind between that story of Yeshua and a video about an ancient artifact? Hold on and hear me out. Before starting a project, be it a house or garden or anything else, you have to prepare the correct foundation for it, right? The same is true for building our spiritual life. “If you, Israel, will return, then return to me…Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your hearts…” Jeremiah 4:1-4
But here is the thing that some may forget, we are not supposed to attempt to do that work alone. We can do more harm than good when we are the ones preparing it ourselves without any professional input. God said “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26. We are supposed to depend on the expert to help prepare our foundations for us instead of trying to clear the way on our own.
If we just do superficial work and don’t allow God to change our hearts there may be some ancient remains of our past that we don’t want to see left behind which is bad, because not only can we not fully learn from the past if we didn’t get the whole lesson it has to offer intact, it is also bad because it will compromise the new foundation of life with God we want to build. So while thinking of this video let’s commit to learn from our past mistakes and never forget to depend on God the expert to safely and effectively remove any that remains.
