Jesus said, “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse. It had been set solidly on rock.”

Jesus says that if I take to heart his words and make them the basis of my actions, my life is built on a rock-solid foundation.

This raises some questions. First, have I built a set of convictions that I try to live by? (These would be comparable to the house in the parable above.) Or, do I more or less operate on a vague desire to do right?

If I do have convictions, then another question is this: What are they based on? The “rock” of God’s word? Or the shifting sands of what seems generally acceptable in our society?

When the rain and floods and winds come into my life – and they do – I need solid footings. As a disciple of the Lord, I commit myself to more than following the Gospel whenever possible and/or convenient.

Just for starters…Do I forgive when I feel like it, or do I have a conviction based on the “solid rock” of what Jesus taught about forgiveness? Or, prayer. Do I pray “when I get a chance,” or do I have a rock-solid pattern of prayer?

I need to spend some time taking stock of the foundations on which I have built my life.