If you have ever lived in or visited a large city, you probably have had the chance to watch a skyscraper under construction. For the first six months or so of the project, all the workmen do is make a great hole in the ground. To build a tall building by starting below the surface level seems absurd, even crazy. Buy as you would suspect, there is a good reason for the large hole. To build a mammoth building, it is first necessary to dig down until a strong foundation can be built, one that is capable of supporting the skyscraper.
A doghouse needs no foundation, and an ordinary house can be built on little more than a concrete slab. But a skyscraper, that's different. It requires a deep and solid foundation.
So it is in our Christian life. Our upward potential is totally dependant on the foundation underneath it.
Walt Davis was totally paralyzed by polio when he was nine years old, but he did not give up. He became the Olympic high jump champion in 1952. Shelly Mann was paralyzed by polio when she was five years old, but she would not give up. She eventually claimed eight different swimming records for the U.S. and won a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
There was once a wealthy businessman who was fascinated by the microscope. Looking through its lens to study crystals and the petals of flowers, he was amazed at their beauty and detail. He decided one day to examine some food he was planning to eat for dinner. Much to his dismay, he discovered that tiny living creatures were crawling in it. Since he was especially fond of this particular food, he wondered what to do. Finally he concluded that there was only one way out of his dilemma - he would destroy the instrument that caused him to discover the distasteful fact. So he smashed the microscope to pieces!
"How foolish!" one might exclaim. But many people do the same thing with Jehovah's Word, the Bible. They hate it and would like to get rid of it because it reveals their evil nature.
At the end of World War II, Robert Woodruff, president of the Coca-Cola Company from 1923 to 1955, had a mission. "In my generation," he declared, "it is my desire that everyone in the world have a taste of Coca-Cola." With a vision and dedication rarely matched in corporate American culture, Woodruff and his colleagues spanned the globe with their soft drink.