building

Opening Prayer: O Lord, unless you build the house, they labor in vain who build it.  Help us to always remember that.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 127:1-2

Journal:  What are you building these days?  What would it look like to stop building and start being built?

Reflection:  Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood . . . (1 Peter 2:5)

     We are builders by nature.  It seems to be woven into our DNA.  From the Tower of Babel, to the Roman Empire, to Microsoft, we just have a propensity to build things--be it a building, or a dynasty, or a business, or even a ministry.  Which is both a blessing and a curse.  For while building can be an asset if you are running a business, it is definitely a liability in the spiritual life. For in the spiritual life, the focus is not so much on building, as it is on being built.  It is not so much about what we can do, as it is about what God wants to do.  We can charge ahead into a thousand-and-one seemingly good plans, schemes, and agendas, and totally miss out on what God wants to build in us and through us.  So instead of grabbing that hammer and beginning to swing away at whatever grand project we have in our minds at the moment, let us, instead, consider how God might want us to be open and available for whatever he wants to build.  For apart from him, our very best work is only in vain.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O Lord our God, forgive us when we start constructing our own houses--living by our own agendas and devices--and attempt to pawn them off as yours.  When we do this we are greatly deceived; we are toiling in vain.  You build the house, O Lord, whatever that may be, whatever it may look like.  For only then will the work of our hands be of any eternal value.