Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build.
-Psalm 127
The Brookland neighborhood in Washington, DC has become home to a flurry of construction projects over the past few years. One of the most recent of these projects is a new mid-rise housing complex that covers an entire city block.
During the fall semester, I passed by the site every day on my way to school and was amazed at how quickly the structure rose. Only a few months ago, there was just a bare concrete foundation, and now several floors of timber frames rise above the streetscape. I’ve wondered when the building will be completed. A year from now, six months, a few weeks?
While we do not all use our hands at construction sites like the one in Brookland, we all have our own building projects to which we dedicate much of our everyday lives. Each of us can probably name a few that we’re working on at this very moment, such as our “New Year’s resolutions.” More often than not, these are very worthwhile endeavors. We look forward to getting to behold our accomplishment as we hammer in the nails, shine the windows, and plant flowers along the walkways.
And we should be proud of our work. To deny the fact that we put a lot of mental energy, ingenuity, perspiration, and yes, caffeine, into those works that are important to us would be a false humility, a denial of the creative agency that God has given to each of us.
The temptation comes when we buy into the subtle but attractive illusion that these construction projects are solely our work, when we forget who the architect is and who the project is for. A new building does not exist because of those preparing the ground and pouring the concrete. It exists because of the architect who designed it. It exists because of the people who will come to live in it.
If we remember this, we’ll get less upset when our projects aren’t completed by the time we wanted. We’ll be less frustrated when the construction is slowed by the snows of winter or the rains of spring. Perhaps even more importantly, we’ll be a bit more willing to let go of our favorite power tool, to walk away from our prized project, though unfinished, if the architect beckons us to take up a new task.
The coming of a New Year is an opportunity to remember who all of our personal construction projects are ultimately for: the God whose coming we have celebrated during the season of Christmas, the God who makes his dwelling among us, who literally “pitches his tent” among us (John 1:14). We may think we know where he wants to stay, in this or that house we’ve been so feverishly working on. We may up our tempo even more when we realize that our project may not be finished by its projected completion date. At such a point, God may surprise us, asking us to leave the installation of the final few wall studs and roof shingles to someone else, to work according to a new blueprint in some other corner of our lives, so that he may take up his dwelling there.
This New Year, may God give us the dedication to do well the work that God has entrusted to us, taking hold of the tools he has given for its purpose. May God give us the humility to let go of these when he asks. And whatever house we’re building, whether it be a grand mansion or humble little shed, whether it be finished or not, may we always open the door to the God who comes to dwell with us, who is the Master Craftsman whose handiwork we are.
By Joseph McDaniel, OSFS
DeSales Weekly: https://oblates.squarespace.com/desales-weekly
DeSales Weekly Editor:: Rev. John (Jack) Kolodziej, OSFS
