Opening thought
“We complain to God when our foundation is shaking, only to discover that it is God who is shaking it.” – Charles Weston
“He says to himself, “Nothing will shake me; I’ll always be happy and never have trouble.” Psalms 10:6
Having lived all of my life in Los Angeles, I’ve been through several earthquakes. During earthquakes, the seemingly strongest buildings can crumble, bridges collapse, power cut off and fires erupt. During an earthquake, all you can do is try to hold on to a doorframe and to the mercy of God. But there is nowhere to run to avoid the shaking of your previously safe and stable world.
My kingdom go
For you to be able to say to the Lord: “Thy Kingdom come”, you must first say: “My Kingdom go!” For God to use you, He first must move you (Matthew 6:10).
Maybe you’re going through a spiritual and emotional earthquake in your life right now. You’ve lost your job or your health. You’re suffering from a broken relationship; you feel hurt by a friend or let down by a family member, or someone you respect. Things and people that were apart of your life’s foundation have shaken you and your heart is confused and longing for peace and answers. As your “soul quake” brings down all of the things that you’ve built up, and you push through the rubble of your life, you may find yourself a wondering refugee in your own soul.
You may even feel like Abraham Lincoln, when he humbly admitted, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
Maybe God’s telling you that it’s time to move from “your foundation” to the “sure foundation.” (Isaiah. 28:16)
A strong foundation
You need be like the man in Luke 6:48, who dug down deep and laid his unshakable foundation on the rock. You need to dig deep in prayer, dig deep in the Word, and dig deep in your relationship with God. The Lord wants you to go from just having an opinion about living for God, to having a conviction about living for God. Because an opinion is something you hold, but a conviction is something that holds you. Your convictions will hold you no matter what storms blow into your life. You’ll be like David when he said about the Lord, in Psalms 62:2, “He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” (NIV)
The Bible says in Acts 16:26 that “…suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.”
Your “soul quake” can shake you free from relying on your money, talent, ability, family, or someone else’s walk with God; and to rebuild your life completely dependent upon Him.
When you get to the point, like Lincoln, where you have nowhere else to go, and all you have left is Jesus, that’s when you’ll truly realize – that He’s all you need.