Motivational Posters

While sitting in my English class yesterday, I was looking around the room at the posters the teacher has hanging up in her room.  They had the same kinds of things as the posters in this picture.  However, there is one thing that bothers me about these "Pillars of Character."  These "pillars" have absolutely no foundation.

Over two years ago, I was living in Mexico.  Our living quarters were nearly 100% concrete.  However, when the place was constructed, the pillars that held the ceiling up had not been connected at the bottom.  As such, after the building was "complete"(the building itself was still in construction, but the part we were living in was complete) the pillars began to settle into the ground.  As they sunk in, they sunk at different rates.  It wasn't bad enough to cause the ceiling to come crashing in, but it was enough to cause a lot of leaks in our ceiling.  There was one leak directly above where I sat and worked on school work, which dripped just often enough to keep me awake.  The leaking was obviously a very bad thing.

The same thing is happening with these "Pillars of Character".  The pillars are strong.  They have good values, good lessons, and good morals.  However, if we do not provide a foundation for the pillars to stand on, the ceiling, at the very least, is going to have some leaks. If you continue building on a cracked and warped roof, you will soon realize that something is going to collapse. As more and more people grow up and have been taught to be a "good person," but have not been taught the reason behind being moral, we will run into problems until we somehow fix the foundation.

What is the foundation?  Or rather, who is the foundation?

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  Matthew 22:37

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Matthew 7:24

The Bible tells us that God is our foundation.  Jesus sums up all of the "Pillars of Character" in one command.  It is good to have morals and convictions.  It is vital to know and recognize the foundation of these morals and convictions, for if there is no reason, there is no motivation. 

And while searching for a picture to post with this blog I ran across this picture.  It made me laugh, so I decided to end this post with it.