On a warm summer night I watched my boys work diligently. The self given task at hand was to line rocks on a railroad tie. Little hands picked up heavy rocks and heaved them in a long row. I watched them work tirelessly and eventually they gave up due to the length of the railroad tie. As I watched I kept thinking to myself about how hard they were working, yet soon someone would come along and kick the rocks back into the pile where they came from.
I couldn’t help but think about how God must look at some of the things that we build. I have spoken about building our own kingdoms before ( probably multiple times.) Maybe it is because God is continually working on me in this area. Maybe because is it a natural human condition. I feel many of us could admit to struggle in this area. Spending our time, effort and thoughts on things that have little to no eternal value. I want to preface this with a reminder of the verse that says whatever your hands find to do, do it. I believe that scripture is speaking about His kingdom. My thoughts were leaning towards kingdoms I build myself. Kingdoms that have little to do with others and much to do with myself. Whether I start building out of boredom or impatience. These kingdoms are just like that line of rocks. Tedious work and a false sense of accomplishment because in the end they do not contribute to His kingdom. They do not fulfill His call.
A while ago I spoke of David. He kept busy keeping his sheep. I do not believe he was hiding with this sheep or escaping some call. He was in a God ordained preparation process. It’s when we begin finding ourselves busy for busyness sake. We then can find ourselves becoming weary over mundane processes that God never intended us to be involved in.
What is the sure way to stay out of this trap? Please, if you have the secret leave it in the comments below. The only thing I can come up with is getting closer to him. Our surety is relative to our proximity to Him.
“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:17-24 ESV
When we put off our old man and begin to put on a new self we begin to change into the likeness of Him. When our thoughts are no longer focused on building our little kingdoms, our little lines of rocks, we then can contribute to a kingdom that will last.
Lord, draw me closer to you. Draw me so close that all the little things in life no longer matter in comparison to the magnitude of your kingdom. Let me focus my thoughts, efforts and heart on things that will last.
PS. I do not want to sound heartless in all this as I thouroughly enjoyed and applauded my boys efforts. I was a very proud mom and it was a beautiful line of rocks as shown by the photo below.
That Could Preach 