Early one morning this past week while trying to clear the fog with my morning cup of coffee, I remembered the dream which I had a few hours prior.  I am not one normally given to dreams, but it seems over the past year I am beginning to have them with increased frequency and with significant messages revealed in their understanding.  After pondering the dream, I continued my Bible reading in the book of Micah.  A short time later my wife stumbled in the living room with her coffee in hand, and I shared the dream. 

I saw myself examining the floor joists under a house.  The beams did not look solid, but they were still in the right locations and attached to the underside of the subflooring.  I began to poke at some of them and as I did the wood just crumbled away, they were completely rotten, deteriorated and incapable of holding any significant weight or pressure.  As I came out of the crawl space I had to shinny on all fours and somewhat contort myself to come up.  It was difficult to get in or out of the crawlspace. 

When I was out, I looked up to see the homeowner (hoping for a good report). I said, “you have to go down and see, you must look for yourself”.  With much persuasion he finally agreed.

That was the dream. 

As my wife and I were considering the dream, I went back to reading in Micah.  Within the next verse or two I read this. 

The people of Beth-Ezel mourn,
    for their house has no support.
Micah 1:11b (NLT)¹

Woah, the Lord now had my attention.  It seems Beth-ezel was a border town in Southern Judah between Israeli and Philistine territory.  And the name means an “adjoining house” almost like when a son in ancient Israel would take a wife and build a wing onto the father’s home for his own family. Oh Lord, I think I understand now. 

Gentile believers (who are grafted into Gods’ household) do not for the most part have a solid foundation; our supporting beams have deteriorated and as the pressure and weight of the world increase on our lives many will not stand under the coming storm.  Everything we’ve built will collapse because the foundation is not solid and tested.  The crawlspace was difficult to get in and out off.  In other words, the people of God will not examine their foundations – we do not want to go there.  But it seems imperative that we must consider what our faith is built on and “strengthen that which remains”.

This is what the Lord says:
“Stop at the crossroads and look around.
    Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it.
Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.
    But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’
Jeremiah 6:16

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it will not collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and does not obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.
Mathew 7:24 

Questions to consider?

• What is the foundation of my faith?
• What are the ancient pathways which we should look for, walk in, and ask about?
• Is my foundation capable of supporting me during the coming storm?

(1) Micah 1:11 is rendered differently depending on translation, I happened to be reading through Micah in the NLT version which so closely paralleled my dream.