Nearing Home by Billy Graham (best book club books for discussion txt) 📗

I couldn’t help but think of those who had once lived there and now had lost everything. They had built their houses on what they assumed were secure foundations; living in an earthquake-prone area, many probably had taken extra precautions. But when the ground suddenly shifted beneath their feet and the tsunami’s massive wall of water rushed across their land, those foundations crumbled, leading to one of the greatest natural disasters in recent memory.

Terrible events like this remind us of what can happen if we build our lives on the wrong foundation—on one that may seem adequate in normal times but can’t withstand life’s stresses and strains. Tragically, however, many people never stop to think about this or examine the foundations on which they are building their lives. They assume they are on the right road and their foundations will always be secure. For some the foundation may be self-indulgence or pleasure or entertainment. Others build upon financial success or social position. Still others think that if they can only find the right person . . . or discover the ideal place to live . . . or clinch the best-paying job . . . then they will always be happy and secure.

But in their quiet moments they may wonder if it’s really true. Perhaps a personal crisis—an unexpected illness, the rebellion of a child, a financial reversal—reveals the foundation for what it really is: unstable and insecure. Or perhaps they finally reach their goals and achieve all they have ever wanted—only to discover success has left them empty and restless and bored. They find themselves saying with the writer of Ecclesiastes,

When I surveyed all that my hands had done

and what I had toiled to achieve,

everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (2:11)

Their hopes and dreams are shattered, leaving them confused and disillusioned and wondering what went wrong. Maybe this has happened to you.

When we build on shaky foundations, problems will come. This is certainly true when we replace Christ with other things: we put ourselves first—our dreams, our ambitions, our hopes, our goals, our appearance, our health, our possessions. We may even experience a measure of happiness and contentment for a time. “After all,” we say to ourselves, “isn’t this what life is all about? Isn’t this the way we’re supposed to live? Isn’t this the way everyone else is living—or at least trying to live?” But sooner or later the shaky foundation is revealed for what it really is. Then troubles come (as they inevitably do), cracks appear, and the foundation starts to crumble. Sadly, we become like the man in Jesus’ parable “who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matthew 7:26–27).

Why is it that money, success, and pleasure bring no lasting satisfaction? Why don’t they provide us with a solid foundation for successful living, especially as we grow older? Because they ignore one of life’s greatest truths: we don’t have just bodies and minds, but we also have souls, also called spirits. If we ignore this truth—if we feed our bodies but starve our souls—our lives will be incomplete and unfulfilled, and we will find ourselves weak and unprepared for life’s inevitable challenges. Sooner or later the storms of life will overwhelm us, and we will discover that we have built our lives on foundations of sand.

Still it’s easy to focus only on physical well-being or emotional happiness as we prepare for the future; we are bombarded with messages about them all the time. Financial advisors suggest that all we need to do to prepare for the future is to make the right investments. Health experts urge us to eat the right foods and take the right vitamins and get the right exercise so we will be healthy and happy and well liked. Publishers and TV infomercials promote a steady stream of products offering the latest advice on gaining success or overcoming life’s problems or keeping old age at bay. Even cosmetics companies get into the act, claiming their products will turn back the clock and make us look younger. I read recently that Americans spend almost sixty billion dollars a year on antiaging products—a sum that is expected to increase 10 percent a year into the foreseeable future.

It is not necessarily wrong to be concerned about some of these things, of course. We should save for the future, and we should take care of our physical bodies and emotional health. But is this all it takes to prepare for the future?

The answer is no; even the securest financial plan and the finest health care aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come. Will a full bank account satisfy you when disability takes away your freedom or death robs you of someone you love? Will robust health shield you against the storms of loneliness or grief or financial insecurity that often besiege us as the aging process advances? Jesus said, “Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25). We need something more, something deeper and unshakable, something that will see us through life’s hard times. We need a solid foundation beneath our lives—a foundation that will give us strength and stability no matter what happens. And the time to build it is now.

God does not want us to drift aimlessly through life, desperately seeking happiness and security and peace—but never finding them. Nor does He want us to build our lives on an unstable or impermanent foundation. God has already provided the foundation we need!

When Ruth and I were planning to build our home many years ago, a friend of ours offered to have an engineer he knew evaluate our building site, which we gladly welcomed. His tests revealed that under certain conditions the soil where we were planning to build