In 1932 Danish furniture maker Ole Kirk Christiansen was facing financial hardship, so he began to make miniature versions of his products. A few years later as his new project was taking off, he came up with a name from from the Danish phrase "leg godt", meaning "play well". The new company kept expanding products, and soon Lego bricks were a massive hit. There’s something simple about the ability to build that appeals to young and old alike, proof being that today the Lego company sells over 30 billion bricks for $10 billion a year.
Some people grow out of the lego phase, but no one grows out of the building phase. There are people today who build cars, homes, businesses, or art. We might think of those people as a special exception, people who just like to work with their hands and get things done. Everyone is a builder, although it’s not usually physical things that we build. All of us are daily building families, careers, and friendships. But more than that, everyday we are building the future for ourselves. Today’s choices build tomorrow's present; the choices that we make today are what builds the future we will live in tomorrow
.
Building is a fundamentally biblical thing. God is the ultimate builder of course, creating everything out of nothing. Today men might dam up a river to create power, but God is the one who created the river in the first place. Beethoven used instruments and music to create these famous works, but God is the one who created music in the beginning. The Bible often refers to God as a builder. Hebrews 3:4 says “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. “ Since men and women are created in the image of God, that means all of us are created with that instinct and longing to build.
We might not all be gifted to build with a hammer and nails, or build a world with words like Tolkien, or create music like Beethoven. But all of us build every day, by taking the choices we make today to shape both our world and the world for those around us. There are three ways that every person builds every day.
The first way we build is through words. The words we speak and the words we listen to are world-building. If someone repeatedly calls you a loser, you will start to believe it. If someone repeatedly tells you that you are beautiful, you will start to believe them too. The words that we speak have great power over mental health, both for the listener and the speaker. Even as we speak to ourselves, we tell ourselves what we can and cannot do. If we repeatedly put ourselves down, then we will start to fulfill the prophecy we spoke. If we denigrate others, we will begin to see other people as worthless too. Eugene Peterson said “We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.” We should not only be careful of the words that come from us, we should be careful of the words that go into us. The avalanche of noise that cascades from music, TV, books, magazines, blogs, newscasts, and so much more build something with us. If all you watch is cable news, you're going to be fearful about the world. If you listen to hateful people, you will become hateful too. The words we speak and hear are constantly building a world around us. We must be careful with what words come into and out of our lives.
We also build constantly by our habits. Habits are the repeated and consistent routines of our life. The little things that we do day by day build the world that we live in. The logic here is simple: A person who exercises every day is building a life that is healthier than someone who eats ice cream every night. The person who spends every dollar they have in the present builds a world where they have no plans for the future. The dangerous thing about habits is that their present size disguises the weight of their future impact. How could something so small have such a big impact in the future? Of course we think about the big decisions that we make in life; where we go to school, who we marry, what job we will have. But the weight of the small habits can outweigh the impact of the big decisions. What good is it to make the big decision to go to an Ivy League school if you don't have the daily habit of studying hard? The cumulative power of habits builds up in our lives and creates the world that we live in. It's often said that small things make a big difference, but that's not quite true. The truth is that small things done repeatedly for a long period of time make a big difference. By all means, think and pray carefully about your big decisions; but think and pray about your small daily habits too. Today's habits create tomorrow's future.
Lastly, we build by our public actions. This one is more straightforward, but in our social media world it is more important than ever. The things we do in public make a difference, and build others' perceptions of us. Think about how a fan at a ballgame is caught in doing something, good or bad, and how that shapes public opinion. In our online world the public things we do shape how others see. us. But our public actions do more than shape what people think about us, they shape how people feel about the world. The things we do in public build a better world not only for ourselves but for others. When we put up a shopping cart at Walmart, when we stop to help someone who's been in an accident, when we use kind words to people in retail, when we throw trash away instead of littering: all of that builds a better world to live in. Our private habits affect others too, but not in the way that our public actions do. Even small things, such as showing kindness to someone when they need it, goes a long way towards building a better world.
Our example in this is Jesus. His words shaped not just the world of his hearers, but the literal physical world. John calls him the “Word” who put on flesh and came to live amongst us. His words called Lazarus from a tomb, building joy out of grief. His words called the blind to see, building light out of darkness. His words built comfort for the grieving and hope for the hopeless. His private habits of daily prayer and communion with his Father shaped the world around him and gave him the strength needed to stand against evil. His public actions of love, forgiveness, and kindness were so radical that they still shape worlds two thousand years later. The life and words of Christ have helped build grand cathedrals, outreach for the downtrodden, empires, marriages, families, and so much more. Christ is the ultimate builder, not just of things that rise only to fade someday, but of everlasting life and eternity.
Everyone is a builder, no matter how big or small. A toddler uses their words to scream and build independence for themselves, a middle aged man or woman uses them to make a living for his family, and older people use them to build memories for their grandchildren. We are all building, everyday, with almost every action we take. Every word we read, every thing we see, every private habit, and every public action builds not only our world but the world of those close to us. What are you building today?