Foundation issues

Never have foundations fascinated me – until now, when mounting evidence of faulty ones rivets my attention.

Interesting thing about faulty foundations: While the problem lies at the bottom, the evidence appears at the top. Said another way: If you’re seeing rifts and fissures – in buildings and life, in organizations and relationships – to correct the problem, you must do more than patch the sheetrock. You have to fix the foundation.

Ah, but we love patching.

Patching enables denial. It keeps us from having to admit the problem’s extent. We gain a sense of accomplishment – while avoiding the painful and costly process of identifying and correcting deeper issues. What’s more, patching keeps the appearance neat.

No matter what’s happening under the surface, we want the appearance to remain neat.

Yet, instead of solving the problem, patching compounds the problem. We can hide the truth only so long. Meanwhile, the rifts we’ve carefully covered continue to grow. New fissures appear, as what once held together snaps apart.

When patching fails, do we then get serious about dealing with foundational issues? No. We blame. We love blaming.

Blaming enables denial. It keeps us from having to assume responsibility. We feel exonerated – while evading the painful ordeal of getting to the root of what went wrong. What’s more, blaming keeps our pride intact.

No matter what’s happening under the surface, we want to keep our pride intact.

Yet, instead of solving the problem, blaming compounds the problem. We can deflect the truth only so long. While we point fingers, new damage appears and grows.

When blaming fails, do we finally get serious about fixing the foundation? No. Instead, we loudly proclaim that we intend to get serious. “We’re going to fix this the right way,” we say. “We’re going to do the right thing!” Meanwhile, we continue to find reasons and ways to let the matter slide.

We love stalling. We love pretending to intend to fix things. Yet empty promises can mimic the truth only so long. The clock continues to tick, and the damage continues to mount.

“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” the poet-king David cried in Psalm 11:3 (NIV). Maybe David had faced all the patching, blaming and stalling he could take.

His question sounds almost like a hand-wringing cry, an everything’s-going-to-collapse-and-there’s-nothing-I-can-do cry.

But the rest of Psalm 11 reveals that David wasn’t asking rhetorically. He was asking strategically. He wasn’t lamenting, “We’re doomed! Nothing can be done to avert disaster!” He was crying for strategy to deal with foundational issues people had denied way too long.

According to the NIV margin, David’s question might be translated, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what is the Righteous One doing?”

The answer? He’s doing plenty. In The Message rendering of verses 4,7, David continued, “He’s in charge, as always, his eyes taking everything in, his eyelids Unblinking, examining Adam's unruly brood inside and out, not missing a thing. . . . GOD's business is putting things right; he loves getting the lines straight, Setting us straight.”

What can we do when evidence of faulty foundations mounts? We can keep patching and blaming and stalling until everything crashes down around us.

We can wring our hands.

Or, desperate, we can seek God’s strategy. We can cry for the Righteous One to show us how to fix the problem from the foundation up. We can actively cooperate as he reveals root issues – humbly admitting the truth and taking each step he indicates.

When we finally pursue the strategy we tried so hard to avoid, we find it sets things straight.

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.