Whether in Manila, Cairo, Los Angeles or Kiev, architects agree: The most important part of any building is its foundation. So is it with the family. Long ago, the psalmist wrote, "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain..." (Psalm 127:1).
Several years ago, I heard about a building superintendent in Hong Kong who built a wall between his house and the house adjacent to his. Not wanting to spend any money for bricks he took a hammer and chisel and began to knock out a few bricks at a time from the basement wall of the building where he worked. Each evening, he would carry a few bricks home in a black satchel that he always brought to work empty.
He carefully concealed what he was doing by covering the missing bricks with cardboard or pieces of plywood. But after several years, the building began to tilt as the weight of the building began to press down where the bricks had been. Structural engineers were called in to find out why the building had begun to tilt, and that is when the deed was discovered.
In a similar way, in our lifetime, someone has been messing with the foundations of the family, and the end result is that families are in trouble today. A generation ago, couples married "for better or for worse" and when the winds of adversity began to blow, they rode out the storm and kept their marriage together.
Who’s been stealing the bricks, causing the family not only to sway, but, far too often, even collapse. Do we blame the attitude of personal fulfillment: you know, the mentality that says if you aren’t happy in a marriage, or if you are not fulfilled, then get out of that marriage? Do we blame the economy that took mothers out of the home and put them in the work force? Do we blame the men who father children but never stay around to be a father? Or blame the Devil–he did it!
Placing the blame isn’t that important; what is important is making the foundation of your home so strong that no force can cause the building of your lives to sway or bend.
Writing to Corinthian families in the first century, Paul wrote, "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). When God becomes the foundation upon which your life is built, there comes a strength which holds at bay those who would steal some of the bricks from the foundation of your home and family.
Our families are under stress today. And the problems aren’t going to go away as your children grow up. It’s up to you to strengthen the foundation of your family and to raise your voice and your hands against those who would weaken the foundation or the walls of your home. If you don’t, who will?
Resource Reading: Colossians 3:12-21