Joel M Bradshaw

46“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”–Luke 6

It happened again the other night. I was cooking dinner in the kitchen and the kids were playing in their rooms. And I was growing frustrated. You see, my children had left toys strewn about the kitchen floor right in the path I was trying to walk. These were toys with wheels that Daddy could easily skate on as he took the pot of boiling noodles to the sink (with fogged up glasses from the steam!).

So I called out their names. In response I heard two distinct calls back of “What?” After almost falling in the kitchen, I wasn’t looking for a conversation across the house. My calling their names meant that they were to come to me and find out why I called them. In this case, to once again get their toys off of my kitchen floor!

How many times do we treat Jesus like that? We know what he expects of us, but we do our own things anyway. It’s as if we pray the Lord’s Prayer and proclaim ‘my will be done’ rather than ‘thy will be done.’ No parent wants their kids to simply hear them, but expects them actually to listen and to obey.

You can hear frustration in Jesus’ words about calling him Lord and then living as if he truly is not your Lord. He then talked about two builders with two foundations. Your life’s foundation is either built upon obeying Jesus or it is not. My frustration with my kids was because they had previously not listened to me. This wasn’t my first time almost tripping over surprise toys in my kitchen!

What would Jesus say about the way you live your life? Is your life’s foundation built more on you or Jesus?–JMB