I no longer believe in the fundamentalist God, and I think that this picture is a fairly good symbolic depiction of my former fundamentalist life. This house looks pretty good on the outside, but the foundation is made up of fear-based rules, desperate need for approval, acceptance, validation, and control. Oh, and the house is apart and alone. My entire life has been pretty much based upon sand. Remember the children’s song that went like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu5bBDRpzPM

Here are the words if you want to cut to the chase 🙂

The Wise Man Built His House

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The wise man built his house upon the rock

The wise man built his house upon the rock

And the rain came tumbling down

Oh, the rain came down

And the floods came up

The rain came down

And the floods came up

The rain came down

And the floods came up

And the wise man’s house stood firm.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand

The foolish man built his house upon the sand

The foolish man built his house upon the sand

And the rain came tumbling down

Oh, the rain came down

And the floods came up

The rain came down

And the floods came up

The rain came down

And the floods came up

And the foolish man’s house went “splat!” [clap hands once]

So, build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ

Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ

Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ

And the blessings will come down

Oh, the blessings come down

As your prayers go up

The blessings come down

As your prayers go up

The blessings come down

As your prayer go up

So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Source: http://childbiblesongs.com/song-21-wise-man-built-his-house.shtml

This song builds an equivocation that Jesus Christ is the rock foundation, and any other foundational belief is sand. To my mind it sets up a false either-or scenario – either believe in Jesus Christ (be wise) or don’t believe in Jesus Christ and be a fool who will lose his life.  And obviously, many Biblical characters, including Jesus lived lives that were extremely difficult!

More than that, this song flat-out lies to young, impressionable minds that are not developed enough to even process logically. This song states as a fact, that ‘As your prayers go up, the blessings will come down.’  Now we know that is simply not true. And yet the song strongly implies that  a) if you believe in Jesus  b) if you pray  then c) you will be consistently showered with blessings (good things will rain down upon you!)

And we sang this song over and over because it’s fun to sing to, and clap in the middle of it.

I really believed, as I’ve written in other posts that God had a distinct purpose and plan for me, God would protect me, and make everything turn out well for me whether I made responsible, thoughtful choices or not. God loved me, and would cause everyone I met, (especially with financial decisions) to have my best interest at heart, give me their best deals just because God would lead them to do so. Additionally, God would lead me to the key people who would open doors to my best career choices!

Because if I built my life on trusting in Jesus, (my Rock), then I would be blessed abundantly!

However, I think that I was unknowingly the foolish fundamentalist man who built his entire house on an island of sand. The fundamentalist god, fundamentalist teachings are all the particles that make up that sand, but as long as my island is sheltered by a youthful harbor of naiveté, then all was well.

But then the rains of reality blew in with gale force and started eroding my sandy beaches on my island of delusions. And when I prayed, prayed, prayed, I got nothing, nothing, nothing.

And so. . .(to be continued)