I spent a couple of weeks in East Germany as a teenager, and found the experience to be enlightening in a way I never expected. For all the deprivation I expected to see, there was light and clarity in the relationships I encountered, and I found myself taking a deep look at my own life as a result. I met a girl named Diana, whose goal in life was to become president of her own communist state. Strange, you may say... but I understand her motivation. She felt that in the absence of capitalism, people were more free to love each other without the pressures that we equate to this "modern" world of ours. In that place I learned that money is an empty motivator, and that true riches are found in rich relationships with people... this lesson has been carved deeply on my soul... it is something I am continually searching for.

I wrote this over a year ago... March 19th 2006 to be exact. In a different time and place... yet when I found it today, folded neatly and shoved into a particular page in my bible, it still spoke volumes to me. The page in which it was folded, also bore these words... "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it." Proverbs 10:22. To me it is about recognizing the difference between the things we want for ourselves, and the things that God wants for us. My understanding of what I wrote is deeper somehow, after having walked through the last year... I have changed my understanding of the house the Lord wants to build. So deep a care and concern has no man but that God would have it for his children, each and every one. Here's the passage I wrote:

In Search of Inspiration.

An architect takes the time to design the building with care. He draws each corner, each wall, each support beam, each foundational block with accuracy and attention to detail. The builder chooses the location carefully, knowing that if he builds the building on sinking sand, all his effort will be for naught because the building will fall.

"Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practise 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 practise is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house, and if fell with a great crash." Matthew 7:24-27

There is a point in the construction of a house where the house in extremely vulnerable. When the walls are put up, they are braced, but the house is then vulnerable to storms until the roof is in place to hold everything together. When I was a child, I remember going out with my grandfather (who also built houses) on a Saturday morning after a storm hit. The strength of the storm was unprecidented and completely unexpected. He had a house that was at this vulnerable stage in construction and when we looked at it, he was horrified. The walls, each carefully constructed according to the plan, had fallen over and cracked against each other. the wood was splintered and had been thrown in all directions. Only the foundation, made of concrete and dug into the earth had survived the wild winds...

The bricks of our foundation were set into place out of the fullness and grace of God. When the form of our house began to appear it was truly unique to all others around it... a thing of beauty that filled our hearts. But, not yet finished when the storm approached, it had no roof to hold out the rain, no doors to hold back the wind. When the strength of the storm became too much, the house fell... leaving only the stones of the foundation in tact. The wooden beams cracked and fell, the pieces lay scattered all about. But then, instead of standing back to assess the damage done to this beautiful thing that we created together, in frustration, we grabbed at the pieces of the fallen house, and began ripping it down with our own hands. And in doing so, we have ripped each other down as well.

"The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." Proverbs 14:1

So now, the storm is calm, and here I stand before a house whose intended beauty is still evident in the stones of the foundation. And I am looking at this destruction that between the storm and our hands has been devastating. The builders are discouraged, tired, frustrated, wanting to turn around and walk away... after all the effort that this took to come this far, their treasure, their handiwork, is utterly destroyed.

But still, the Architect's dream... is for the house to be completed, to have paint on the walls, and show the beauty of His creation, to stand and honour Him, to again be a place of fullness and grace. To start again... with pieces of the old, to create something new.

73 days.