Building Wisely

“Building Wisely”

By Zach Wood

Matthew 7:24-27 NIV

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.  The 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.  But 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.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

Last week, as I was out on my afternoon walk break at work, I was thinking of all the work that goes into not only my company, but with companies in general all over the world.  Most people in companies work very hard to make things right in what they do.  No matter what work environment, people work hard to crunch numbers and they spend endless hours making invoice numbers match purchase orders.  There is often so much work making absolutely sure that our work is completely up to par. 

As I continued to think about all the hard work that we put into our jobs, I could not help but be heartbroken to ask myself why I don’t put as much effort into my relationship with Christ.  I am ashamed to think of how much effort I will put into my job to make sure my numbers match, but then slack in giving my utmost to God.  I often put in so much energy and effort into doing the best I can for my employer, but then I have the mentality of “It’s good enough” into my relationship and effort to serve God. 

I often wonder how it must break God’s heart for Him to look down upon us, the children He created, and see us working so hard at building our earthly house upon sand instead of building a solid house on a firm rock foundation.  Who in their right mind would even think of building a house on sand and expecting that to last?  We wouldn’t even consider just throwing up some wood, pounding a few nails into it and calling it “good”.  A house is built with wisdom of those who know how to build a house.  We pay people good money to build houses with firm foundations.

God wants us to be wise in how we live our lives.  Are we living our lives by focusing on how we are living for Him or are we more concerned about the earthly pursuits we have?  Don’t get me wrong, it’s imperative that we do our best in all we do in life.  But what I am saying is that we often pour so much more time and effort into what we do here on earth that we spend less time actually building wisely into our families, our spiritual lives and investing time in other people’s lives.  We do a little for God and we say, “Eh, it’s good enough”.

God sent Jesus Christ to die for us.  He gave his best.  We owe it to Him to live our lives wisely and give Him our very best.  Building wisely.