When the Asian tsunami struck, one of my pastors was in Australia. The massive devastation, the enormous loss of life, prompted some soul searching and resulted in her making five resolutions. Her third resolution was simply stated: obey God more. To illustrate the point, she referred to Jesus’ story of the wise and foolish builders.

²⁴Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

Matt: 7:24-27 (NIV)

When you obey God, a single set of principles governs your behavior and you become a whole, real whole person. You build on one rock.

When you compartmentalize your life, you act differently around different people. You follow different rules depending on the circumstances. Rather than being one, real person, you are multiple, fake people. (It’s interesting how duplicitous is synonymous with fake.) You don’t build on one rock; you build on a bunch of little rocks. And what is sand, but a bunch of little rocks.

I’ve heard this story explained many times, but this was the first time I’d heard building on the sand be described as being compartmentalized and fake. It spoke to me. Maybe it will speak to you, too.