Last week I attended the Discipleship Conference of our church Victory, with the theme, Establish. At the conference I got to see friends who I have not seen in a while as they now attend different Victory congregations. As I mingled with them and with other friends who are also involved in leading small groups for discipleship, I was reminded of the value of building the right foundations in our own lives, and that of others.

Too often we do not realize our foundations are faulty until it is too late. We could go about our daily business, not realizing we are tilting and could crash anytime soon. All it will take is one major problem and our faulty foundations will be evident.

So how do we establish the right foundations? We dig and we build. We cannot build without first digging — digging the dirt out as Pastor Steve Murrell spoke on at the conference. Digging the dirt out of our lives takes a lot of time, effort, resources. We need to invest emotionally if we are to build the right foundations.

The friends I saw at the conference are friends who have seen me through life’s  mountains and valleys. They helped dig through some of the dirt  I had in my own life. These women went beyond the facade I had, because of my own independence and self-sufficiency, and helped dig through the internal mess I had in my own life. They addressed the issues I was hiding under the rug, and always pointed me where I should go.

Discipleship and building the right foundations is a tedious process, but it takes a community to do it. I couldn’t have unearthed some of the dirt in my own life without the help of numerous people who stood with me and helped get me right on track, building the foundations that will withstand the problems I may face in life.