Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, speaking recently to the annual meeting of the Republican governors association, has called on the Republican party to return to its core values saying “The Washington values of our national leaders simply don’t reflect the values of the Republican party”.

So what does she mean?

The answer is simple. Everything and everyone needs a foundation.

Foundations are, well, foundational to success and even survival.

Any political party has to have a basis for what they believe and that basis needs to be the backbone of their policy decisions. In other words, they need to lay a foundation of what they believe and then everything they do from there needs to agree with and be in line with those beliefs.

Any part of what they do which is not built on their foundations will ultimately damage what they are trying to build and could even cause what they are building to topple and fall.

That also means that they have to have members and candidates who believe in those core values and live and react accordingly. If a party’s candidates do not believe in the core values of the party then voters will rightly question what direction the party is taking and whether or not they can trust the candidates they are being asked to vote for. Step outside of your core values and people no longer know what your core values are.

I believe that Gov. Palin is right to tell the party that they need to return to their core values – and that is good advice for all of us.

We all have core values, we all have a foundation of what we believe and when we stray from within the boundaries of that foundation, we instantly become susceptible to attacks and to breakdowns. When your actions do not agree with your core values, you find those actions very hard to justify and defend. A quick way to a mental breakdown is to start doing a lot of things that you don’t, yourself, agree with.

Our foundations can change, indeed, the foundation which we build on before we come to know Christ is swept away when we become children of God and a new foundation is put in place. It is incredibly important for all of us to lay a solid foundation in our faith so that we can build on the truth, the solid rock of Christ. If we don’t understand, learn and take to heart the foundations of the Christian faith, we start to build not on the solid rock that God provides but on man-made sandy ground which won’t hold us up in the storms of life.

Matthew 7: 24-27: 24“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. 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.”

Do you, like the Republican party need to return to your foundations?