One of my favourite parables (stories that Jesus told) is the one about two builders of houses. It’s believed by scholars that the two houses were next to each other and were affected by the same storm. If this is correct, then it makes the illustration even more powerful when you transfer it to the days in which we are living in right now.

It’s fair to say that leading a church through the last 2 years has been very challenging.

March 2020 brought the first lock down – the good one as I heard it once described and totally understood that description. Everyone went with it, no one really knew what was happening. Peoples’ lives changed practically overnight. Everything and everyone went on line. Schools, churches, keep fit classes and so on. We were told to stay at home. Wow. Hard to believe we lived through that – but we did.

Fear was launched at our nation and, indeed the world. The media, scientists, politicians bombarded us with graphs, facts, figures and predictions that were enough to send us all into retreat and ‘stop the world, we want to get off’ mode. Whatever your thoughts on what’s been going on, there is no doubt now that so much of it has been false data, even today I read of a doctor in America who has admitted he himself falsified data. The Why is yet unknown, but I’m sure it will be uncovered either in a movie (haha) or when we get to heaven! Either way, the truth will come out. I have much compassion for those who have lost their lives because of Covid and I include in those, people who have lost jobs, businesses, the mental health issues, the children who weren’t in school and so were missed by social services and were brutally killed, those who have died because of missed cancer diagnosis and the list goes on. There have and will continue to be many lives affected negatively because of Covid 19 and not just the disease.

There’s a lot of work to do and the church has a good chance of helping, but the church can only help from a position of strength. If the church is in retreat how can it advance the gospel? As soon as we were allowed, we were back in our church, gathering together, worshipping and hearing the Word of God together. Nothing can compare with that. Sadly, according to a Twitter poll by Andrew Wilson at the end of August 2021 asking Christians to guess how many of their congregations had returned to church was answered by 902 churches in the UK giving an overall average of about 55%. That’s tragic. Let’s hope it goes up in 2022. I don’t believe the devil was the instigator of the pandemic, but he’s not asleep and can only be rubbing his hands together at such stats! Come on church – we’re supposed to be the light of the world.

For those of us who are Christians, we have incredible access to the mind of Christ. From the start of the Covid crisis, John and I were determined to stand on the word of God as the ultimate truth, the only unchanging truth. I have no desire to leave this earth yet, but I said many times, for me personally, what’s the ‘worst’ that can happen, I die and wake up in paradise. That’s the believer’s reality. This earth is temporal. Don’t know if you ever meditate on heaven, but you should try it some time. If you know Jesus, one day you will live there for eternity. Wow.

So, what about now? What are you building on? Back to the story! There were two men, two houses , two foundations, one storm and two outcomes! The one built his house on sand – what could that look like for us today? Maybe building on unhealthy choices, guilt, un-forgiveness, bitterness, lack of prayer, Bible and church attendance or too much chocolate! 🙂 If you build your life on such things, when the storm comes you are going to struggle to keep your house up!

Build on THE ROCK – Prayer, Bible, Church attendance (this is vital for me – happy to talk further about it if you’d like to know why) good choices, forgiveness etc. When your storms come, your house will stand firm.

In the house building trade, of which I know nothing except to say, foundation building isn’t seen, it takes work, time and much digging down, but when the foundation is set, the houses go up quickly . It’s the same in our lives, build what can’t been seen in order to grow into what can be seen and that should be lights shining brightly in a world that has lost its way.

Love D x