Imagine that you are not really a builder but you are a very handy person, someone who is handy enough to cobble together a beach shack, your dream getaway. Because you are so handy, you think of yourself as a builder and you do it. You buy a spot on the beach, you buy some lumber, some plywood, some drywall, some shingles, a keg of nails and you roll up your sleeves and go to it. You build a place where you, your family, and a few good friends can get away and just unwind and have fun.
The big problem is that you have built your home on sand. You are soon horrified to discover that everything in it is becoming topsy-turvy. The floors tilt, the window panes crack, the staircase has shifted so much your guests have put a ladder up to the window in their bedroom to use instead of the stairway. As things shift, you think, “This is horrible, this house wasn’t built on a solid foundation. I built on sand! I’ll never be able to fix this, but if I don’t keep on trying, I’ll die.”
In this parable, you are tremendously fearful. You know that in spite of your investment in buying the beach plot and in spite of all of your hard work in building your dream getaway, in spite of the continuous and exhausting patchwork, you are constantly doing; your dream beach house is disappearing. You are so frightened. It is all tumbling down and when it does you will simply die. Your dreams, your hopes, all shattered. Your family, your friends, so disappointed. It is all so terrible, you will just die!
But That’s Not Really What Happens
When you stop the frantic patchwork, the house will fall apart. That part is true. But everyone will get out. Your friends, your family, you, all of you will get out . . . safely. It is true that you will not have a beach-house retreat – for a while. But that will only be temporary. You can rebuild. When you do, you will need a solid foundation obviously. It would be foolish to rebuild on sand. But everyone will make it out alive. A new beach-house will be built, this time on a solid foundation of piling deeply driven to withstand the shifting sands. No one will die – not even from mortification. Life will go on
It’s Really Not Death We Fear
That fear of death is actually misplaced. The ‘Builder’ thinks its death he or she fears. But what the ‘Builder’ fears is truth. “Death” isn’t death in this parable. It is the truth that is feared. The Builder did it wrong. The Builder could not sustain their house built on sand. The Builder was going to let some people down, was going to disappointment those who were near and dear to him. That truth even when it is not death, but when it is harsh and painful and fearful, often gets confused with death, with something we want to avoid, with something we do not want to face.
But We Always Live
What the Builder does next is What Matters. Because we all live, we will feel anger, disappointment, grief, sadness, inadequacy, and a whole raft of other emotions. They pile up beside us like the tilted floors, shifted staircase or cracked windowpane in the dream-house built on sand. But when we reflect and examine how those feelings came into being then the obvious next step is to rebuild with a solid foundation and more knowledge. And to gain more knowledge it makes sense to seek out better teachers who can teach us the fundamentals of building a solid foundation that will resist the shifting sands.
We are all builders in one way or another as we strive to live more healthful, leaner, and energetic lives. We have all let a few houses fall but what we do next is What Matters most. Looking good, feeling good and performing great is central to good health!
Kim