Foundational Concepts

A disturbing number of people fall for strange radicalisms that derail them from a normal productive life. Weird health fads that are actually money schemes preying on gullible individuals. Illogical conspiracies so complex that the possibility of them is off the charts. Religious dogmas that obscure the simple truth and power of Jesus.

How can we secure ourselves and our families from such imbalance and deception?

A person’s life is like a tower being built. We start out at birth with nothing—no experience, no education, no possessions. All of us that are mentally healthy have the same opportunity to learn and grow. As we grow older, we also acquire the tools and equipment we need to navigate life successfully. Build a picture in your mind of a construction site. For a long time we work on the base of this building—the foundation. The more education and valuable experience we accumulate, the broader the base of the tower will be! The opposite is also true.

At some age it stops being possible to expand the base of the tower, and we inevitably start building upward. This age probably varies quite a bit, but let’s use age thirty as an average. Before age thirty, we might gain some height in the tower, but mostly we broaden the base. After thirty the base is established, and it is impossible to go back and work on the foundation anymore. All experience and circumstances will build on the top. The tower will grow taller and taller.

Common sense tells us that a broader base enables us to build a taller tower while maintaining stability. If, through a cloistered or wasted youth we did not gain the necessary education and experience to establish a broad base, we will grow taller and taller on this narrow, insufficient foundation. In life we will inevitably meet with things that expand our horizons and stretch us quite a bit. If this happens after age thirty, we will grow wider while growing taller. If our tower is built on a narrow base, what do we expect to happen? Top-heaviness! The tendency to fall over into some radicalism increases.

Conversely, if we are exposed to more education and beneficial experiences before age thirty, we can have a base broad enough to be able to carry some height and reduce the tendency of deception.

As a Christian, our base is Jesus Christ. “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” So, as we come to the age of accountability, we receive Jesus as our Savior and build on Him for the rest of our life. But this, in itself, by itself, is not enough to gain a wide, strong base of experience. Jesus provides a framework to enable us to understand and interpret everything through Him and make sense of life with Him as the foundation and the end goal. All education and experience will add to the fullness of a life in Christ. On the other hand, a lack of experience or wrong activities will weaken and contract the base of the tower. This concept is a law of life. It is not unique to Christianity, but it is certainly true inside Christianity.

Many Christians have the idea that education and experience must be closely regulated to reduce the chance of exposure to something that will deceive us. This is a valid point and concern but can easily be taken too far and result in a narrow misfocus.

As parents and teachers, our goal must be to work ourselves out of a job. To produce a person that is balanced and equipped to meet life, we need to pursue a wide range of knowledge and experience and avoid any dependency on ourselves. We need to inspire a mindset of learning and achievement that will produce a wide, stable base. A sheltered, safe upbringing tends to result in a fairly narrow life that is less productive in the Kingdom than a person who has lots of good experience under his belt and has learned to make sense of everything through Jesus Christ. The strongest tower is one that has a broad base to carry sufficient weight. As it grows taller, it tapers and reaches higher and higher. This building has significant potential!

As a complimentary analogy; when we think of this life in terms of a road we are traveling on, we typically imagine one path that leads to heaven and one path that leads to hell. Before we can get on the way to heaven, we must pass through a gate which represents the new birth, our first encounter with the supernatural.

Let’s include the reality of time. In time we only go in one direction--forward. We can never return to an earlier place in the journey. So if we arrive on the right road, can we count on following it all the way to heaven? Yes, if we stay on the right road.

However, at whatever point we find ourselves, there is a crossroad. An infinite number of forks exists in the road ahead of us. We can never turn around, but we can always turn.

Possibly there is another way to think about the broad-based construct. If we achieve a wide, strong foundation, we will be better equipped to discern which way to turn at every point in life, and will eventually arrive at our intended destination. Jesus provides the ability to be broad-based, stable and effective. If we pursue all experience and education to honor Him, with Him as our focus, we can achieve stability and direction when confronted with the maze of intersections.