I love buildings. I love to see how rooms fill into hallways, how tall ceilings are, how architects solved space and ended dilemmas of design. I sit and imagine how a perfect home for our family would be laid out. Would it be one or two stories? Where would the bedrooms be? What is the least amount of space we could have and still feel it was just enough? Websites that allow you to take tours of people’s homes can suck all sorts of time from my life. I love to see how different people choose to live in their spaces. It is all so unique, so interesting to me.
So, when I read a passage of scripture that talks about building, I am rapt. I found this one in Jeremiah:
13 “Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness
And his upper rooms without justice,
Who uses his neighbor’s services without pay
And does not give him his wages,
14 Who says, ‘I will build myself a roomy house
With spacious upper rooms,
And cut out its windows,
Paneling it with cedar and painting it bright red.’
15 “Do you become a king because you are competing in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
And do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
16 “He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy;
Then it was well.
Is not that what it means to know Me?”
Deliberately building into our lives more than just what pleases us will be necessary if we want to know Him more deeply here in this life. Our purpose deepens and He enters when we build the needs of others into our everyday. In fact, God says here that is how we can make it all well and know Him.
Didn’t He promise, “…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)
The fancy comforts of this wealthy nation will be seen for what they are: a luxury that few can afford, things that satisfy a shallow place in our souls, but pale in comparison with His greatness. After drinking water that ends your thirst forever, a Venti Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino becomes just another swig of the ordinary.
When you provide clean water for a village, teach your children to love one another, send aid to orphans, smile at strangers as you pass, pray for nations to be freed from evil, support missionaries on the college campus and forgive even when forgiveness has not been earned, you change worlds. Your effort and faith together make space for God to come and make it well with you.
If we build it, He will come. But, we will have to build it well, build it for others, and teach them to build with space for Him too. That is being the church. That is loving like Jesus. Faith and effort changing worlds.
A building is really just a building. But if we live our lives for Him we can be so much more.
