Activities
Spiritual Formation
It Takes Time
I will never forget the moment while we were remodeling our house in Charlotte, NC, and my wife walked in to where I had pulled up floorboards in the kitchen so that she could see the dirt under the house. With a look of horror and discouragement on her face she said, “I didn’t realize that vaulting the ceilings meant gutting the house.”
For anyone who has ever been through a remodeling project, you can relate. Having to change your routine, share space in ways you normally wouldn’t, work around mess, and deal with financial uncertainties are just a short list of issues you need to be prepared to navigate well.
In our case, we also needed to deal with the foundation, hence the torn-up floorboards. But you can’t build up (vaulted ceilings) without first digging deep. It was a long few months, but we finally moved in. The house was well worth the wait and the pain of the construction process. I guess you could say it all worked out in the end. Most especially because of the valuable life lessons our family gained in the process.
Jesus says this in Luke 6:46-49, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed, and its destruction was complete.”
Jesus is making it clear that not just hearing His words, but actually doing them is what corrects the foundation, and His analogy is perfect! Painting a ceiling that is only going to collapse because it is not properly supported is a complete waste of time and effort. Listening to the words of God without applying them will result in a collapse of your spiritual integrity. It might take a lot less time to cheat than to study and learn, but in the long run, it’s ultimately a waste.
When the inspector came to look over the framing of the new vaulted ceiling it failed, not once, but two different times. Adding nearly two months to the construction timeline I originally established. It was a long and frustrating experience, but by the time we finished the work, we had confidence it was done right. And when we sold the house to move to Miami three years later, I knew my work would stand.
It takes time to build a foundation that will sustain the weight of your life. Cutting corners and taking shortcuts seems enticing, but in the end, it will cost you so much more time than it saves. Don’t settle for putting another coat of paint on it to make it look good in the short term. Jesus is calling us to do the foundation work, it’s very costly and time consuming, but when it’s done right you are free to build.
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.