The WORD in ADVENT - First Thursday
December 1, 2022: Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7:21, 24-27
A strong city, a house built on a rock - these are the images we are given to contemplate today. A city with its walls, bulwarks and ramparts signify the strength that each one possesses. The house built on rock signifies the security and the assurance of safety that everyone looks for. And in contrast we have the house built on sand which is quick to ruin itself, assailed by the least of the battering; a city that is unguarded which has all the possibility of attack from within, from outside and from all unprecedented quarters.
Are we a guarded city, a house founded on a rock? Or are we a weak city, a house on a sinking sand? What determines this? Naturally, our choices; our deliberate, daily and determined choices! The person that we are, the choices that we make, the priorities we have, the criteria we act on, the principles we stand by... these determine the strength and the security that we possess.
It would be opportune for each of us to ask ourselves - what are those which matter to me when I have to make a choice from within? Others' opinion about me, my fleeting moment of so-called joy, my urge to prove myself, the tendency to exploit the other or the situation, my so-called prudence to gain out of everything that I involve myself in : which of these determine my daily and simple choices? What kind of an influence do these make on my priorities and my life style?
When these choices, priorities, criteria and principles are flimsy and meaningless, how unfortunate and doomed I could be! Instead, if they are all founded on the Lord and the Lord's Word, we shall indeed be a city well guarded and a house firmly built on rock. Isn't it time to check our foundations!