Building a strong foundation

Before a building is being built, construction workers will always dig the ground at the construction site. You will see them digging it deep. You will see them taking the ugly-looking soil and muds out from the site. You will probably see ground worms sniffing across the site. No way you are going to comment that the site looks beautiful. The site looks ugly, looks messy.

Once the construction workers finish digging, you will see them inserting the steel piles around the site, to build the structure to support the eventual building. These steel piles do not look interesting either, but they are strong. And it is pretty amazing to see how these steel piles manage to support the weights of the tall skyscrapers everywhere...

The time taken just to do all of the above is definitely longer than the actual construction of the building itself!

Don't get me wrong. I am not into construction industry here! This is an analogy my cell group leader illustrated during the cell group meeting 2 days ago. It simply illustrates the point that, when God builds our lives, He will first show us what we need to change: the ugliness of selfishness, pride and lust... in short, the carnal nature of our flesh. This is just like the digging of the construction site, whereby the ugliness is being exposed to our knowledge so that we can deal with it and put things back to proper order. God then continues to build our lives through His Word, and applying His Word in our lives will be like putting the strong steel piles at the construction site, to ensure that we will be able to stand strong against any challenges (storms), instability (earthquakes) and attacks (bombs?).

After the foundation is built properly, the actual building, blended with beautiful architectual designs, will be built. Level by level, it will go higher and higher, and eventually becomes a tower where people outside the construction site can see and marvel. Applying back to us, once the foundation of our lives is built properly, we will see ourselves changed, and God will bring us to new levels and heights that we would have never imagined possible, and simply, beyond what we can comprehend. Our lives will become strong towers that will emerge in our societies, and we can truly testify that God -- the architect, the beginner and the finisher -- is indeed the builder of our lives. We will marvel how amazingly God builds our lives!

I was very encouraged by this analogy, and this story was not even the actual message of that particular cell group meeting! God is the builder of my life. He has been building my life. He is still building my life. And He will continue to build my life, and take me to the heights He wants me to be. And guess what, I am excited and eagered to see how my 'building' is going to look like eventually! =)