My family and I spent the day at the lake recently (It’s been about 100 degrees for over a month now!), and as part of the day’s events, we built a sand castle. Allow me to brag about my construction skills. The sand castle was amazing, complete with walls, turrets, gates, flags, a moat, and even a cannon with little cannon balls.
When we were nearly done, Selah asked “Can we come back and play with this castle next week?”
“No,” I replied. “Someone will probably come along and knock it down.”
“Why?” she asked.
My wife chimed in, “Because that’s the nature of sand castles. We build them to enjoy building them, and then leave them for others to look at before they knock them down.”
Selah, not at all upset by this information, said, “Well, we better build a good one then, so that they enjoy looking at it before they knock it down.”
That, I think, is my new philosophy to life and mission. Everything I do in life will probably be knocked down once I am gone. In fact, it seems that some people are trying to knock me down before I even get the first wall built. So the best I can do is build in such a way to (1) enjoy the process of building, and (2) build so that someone enjoys looking at what I build before it is destroyed.
I figure that if God wants my life work to outlast me, that’s up to Him. Attempting to build something for myself when God is not behind it is like trying to protect sand castles against the tide.
Hi Jeremy,
We should all listen to little Selah. Oh the wisdom that comes from a child sometimes. We should all be like that!!!
I still have some of those “walls” that you built for me months ago stuck away in my Bible carrying case because what you taught me was so good and so biblical. Very helpful~!!! Thank you for that.
Always a friend,
Diane
🙂
This was a very sweet lesson.
I’m sorry for kicking your sandcastle.
Someone else kicked mine and I retaliated.
Hey Jeremy,
I just preached a message from Ecclesiastes this weekend and I came to the same conclusion you did.
Daniel
Daniel,
Yes, this is one of the key messages of Ecclesiastes. Did you preach at West Cliff or back at Stillwater or in your home church? Keep in touch, my friend!
I preached at my parent’s church in Thomas. I am preaching again this Sunday at the church we used to go to when I was a kid. I have really enjoyed reading through Ecclesiastes. I wish DTS offered an elective on it in the OT department. What is going on at Westcliffe? I am assuming you aren’t preaching there anymore given your new job???
Daniel,
You are right. I am not preaching at Westcliff any more, dut to my current job schedule.
They don’t offer the Eccl. elective because it is covered in Hebrew 4. Have you taken it yet. I took it with Dr. Johnston and he did an AMAZING job on Ecclesiastes. I was so thrilled to learn about that book from him.