Robyn and I went on a hike last year in Mammoth.  We took the easy way down, longer, but a much gentler, shaded slope alongside a stream.  It was picturesque.  Birds, lizards, fish, nice hikers and those weird nature people were all around us.  We had a great time.  At the end of the trail was a huge waterfall that we both wanted to see.  The easy way seemed to never end, and halfway through the trees had all been burned out, so there was no shade for a few miles.  It was rough, but at the end of it, when we came to the falls it was breathtaking.  I've never seen anything like it.  All the great pictures and TV clips of waterfalls I'd seen before did not at all compare to seeing such a massive structure in person.  We were a few hundred yards away from it, and the roar of the water still made it hard to have a conversation.  Mammoth has many, many awe inspiring creations, things that make you think seriously about the great and colossal power that God wields.  The waterfall though, was the most impressive thing I'd seen.  We ate our special trail bars and replenished our body's water while we watched many thousands of gallons of wide river plummet many hundreds of feet down the cliff.

We got up, put on our backpacks and started back up the trail.  We knew that if we had gone the easy way down, that we'd have to take the hard way back up.  The trail that was mostly rocky, mostly steep hill when it wasn't climbing big rocks, and mostly in full sun the whole time.  But we also knew it was shorter and if we could reach the top quickly that we could catch a shuttle up to the little dinner at the heart of the park and have brunch.  I must have been thinking about how great and awesome God is to create things like waterfalls, or about scrambled eggs and toast, when I tripped.  I could have sworn the trail was clear, but something had tripped me and was under my foot.  I looked down and the sole of my well loved and worn in hiking boots had detached itself from the rest of the boot.  At first it was sort of funny, because I would take a step upwards, and then my sole would clap up a second later and follow.  It was like as I was walking my shoes were applauding me, letting me know that I could do it.  It was funny until the rest of the glue holding my shoe together stopped doing so, and the sole folded over itself and became a giant piece of rubber trying to make me fall down at every step.  Then it started being really annoying.  Robyn figured that going on with just the ragged bottom liner of the shoe would work better than trying not to break my ankle with it on.  So I ripped off the sole and we started up the steep, rocky, shade less path back to the road.  It was miserable.  I felt every rock and fallen branch as if I had entirely bare feet.  I'm pretty sure I said some fairly mean and bitter words to my shoe during the hike up. 

It is always strange to me at times like that when the unsuspecting things go wrong and ruin the day.  I'm sure that I never considered that the soles of my boots would fall off in the middle of a hike.  I always think I'll run out of water or fall and break something.  I think that something significant will go wrong.  But usually it’s these little things instead.

We're starting a new series this month in the Jr. High group on Sunday mornings, about the foundations of our faith.  When I was preparing and thinking about foundations, I thought about my shoes and that hike too, and how things these days are not built to last but to break.  We, of course, will be talking about the man who built his house on sand and the man who built his house on the rock.  Something struck me when I was reading that story out of the Message translation of the Bible:

"These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on."  Matthew 7:24

There are a lot of books around my house that would be considered incidental additions to how I think about myself, life, society or view God and ministry.  There are a lot of quotes in my head that adorn my life, quotes from moves, songs, TV shows.  Things that don't really have any real meaning, but that I say all the time because I have an affinity to them.  But what Jesus is saying is that the words he says, those aren't just enlightening thoughts, or funny quotes, but words that will anchor my life to God.  I'm sure that eventually I'll get tired of saying lines from Star Wars and the Matrix.  At some point in my life I'll think that they just don't amuse me anymore, and my life will neither be better, nor worse, I'll just have to find some other movie that has superior, more amusing quotes.  But if I take Jesus' words into practice as he says to do, I won't have to look for something else to fill that space in my life.  His words will become the glue that holds my life together, and it won't come off in the middle of a hard and rocky trail like the glue in my dumb hiking boots. 

I'm not sure that at any of the other times I've read that passage, I have seen it in quite the same way, but now that I have, will I be content to fill my life with quotes from the culture I live in, or will I decide to fill it with words to build my life on?