Nearing Home - Billy Graham [50]
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