The Master Builder is God

DAILY BYTE

God’s words to David, “Don’t you build a house for me, I will build a house for you,” remind of us two important truths. The first of these we looked at briefly yesterday – that God cannot ever be contained. God is sovereign, unconstrained and utterly free to move and to act however God chooses.

The second truth contained in God’s words to David is this:
The building work that really matters is ultimately God’s work. It’s what God does. Yes, we discover that it’s work in which we are called to participate. But we mustn’t forget that the true architect and builder of the things that really matter is God.

All great spirituality in the end is about letting go – letting go of our own agendas, letting go of our own plans, timeframes, dreams and ambitions. And aligning our lives, our purpose, and our very selves with the things of God. As the Psalmist says, ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart,’ because when we delight in the Lord the desires of our hearts shift to conform with the desires of God’s own heart.

Flowing out of this truth is a wonderful nugget of wisdom that has been expressed by various people, most recently Bono of the rock-band U2. He says, “Don’t ask God to bless what you are doing. Rather, find out what God is doing and get involved with that – it is already blessed.”

The wonderful news is that as we seek to find out what God is doing, we discover that God is actively involved in lives of the people that matter to us, and many others beside, but not always in the ways in which we expect.

Listen to these words from Eugene Peterson’s translation of Ephesians 2:

“God is building a home. He’s using us all – irrespective of how we got here – in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day – a holy temple built by God, all of us being built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.”

It’s true - God is building a home. Quite remarkably in this building programme the principal resource God chooses to use are ordinary people like you and me. So will you become a part of what God is seeking to build, a house which could use your life, but which is so much bigger than just your life?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, open my eyes to see what you are doing and what you are building in my midst. And then give me the humility, the courage and the grace to abandon whatever other building agendas I may have had in order to give myself completely to what you are doing. Use me, O Master Builder Divine, use me! Amen.