After endlessly patching and painting them, I also realized that certain doors were sticking, then some windows. I'd fix one problem, and another would pop up. It all led to the foundation of our house, which was literally slipping down our very steep hill on the side of a beautifully wooded ravine.
Turns out that the builder did not fully follow established codes. So we paid to have enormous amounts of concrete and rebar added to stem the tide and a certified engineer determined that it was back to acceptable code. Just because we had purchased a house that looked ok on the outside, hadn't meant that it was built to code...and time revealed that, one crack at a time.
God has made it easy for us by providing a written code - His inspired and revealed Word in the Holy Bible. This is the foundation. I spent the first 28 years of my life constantly applying patches and paint to my life. My moral code was almost comically spackled with contradiction and hypocrisy. Then I read the Gospels. Then I immersed myself in Paul's letters. Then I joined a Bible study...
I had finally realized that I couldn't simply "reason" and intellectualize my way through right and wrong. There was God's foundation, or there was the world's hardware store full of self-help books, philosophies and disciplines. Some look good for awhile, but time reveals them. Or, you can learn their flaws by examining the code upon which they were built.
I still need a repair every now and then, when cracks appear in my life - but I've got a supernatural contractor to work with - and I am assured that there's no longer a problem with the foundation.
What do you believe?
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