Foundation for Life?

I don't know what happened to the family that once lived in this house. I imagine they woke up as usual on the morning of March 11, 2011, expecting the day to pass as any other day.

They arose from their beds and looked out their windows to ponder the gently pulsating ocean waves a short distance from their doorstep. They exercised. They ate breakfast. Then they left for work. Or school. Or the market. Or did they spend the day at home?

Whichever, the morning of March 11, 2011, was their last in their home. At 2:46 p.m., a 9.0 earthquake violently shook the eastern coast of Japan, plunging the Pacific tectonic plate beneath the North American, 50 miles out into the ocean and approximately 18 miles deep, heaving up a massive volume of water and sending it speeding toward the shore. Thirty minutes later, a towering tsunami washed over Sendai, Miyagi, Iwaki, and other cities along the coast. Houses like the one in the photo were shoved away from their foundations or altogether destroyed.

So what happened to the family that lived in this house? Did they hear the warnings to evacuate? Did they heed the warnings?

Foundations, floods, and warnings—these are metaphors for the common experiences of adversity, disaster, and judgment facing all of us. To this end, Jesus Christ once advised:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

Jesus clearly meant this as a warning to be heeded, knowing the havoc that floods of adversity and judgment can wreak on someone's life. In the case of judgment, the result is devastating when the foundation is not properly built.

So how do you respond to Jesus' words? What about your foundation for life?