Monday, 5/10/21 – Pressing on… Construction site insights

Construction site insights

Looking out our front window and across our private road we can watch as a new townhouse goes up on an adjacent downhill street. First, ploughs came and worked the below street level land and we wondered as to the purpose. Next wood frames were put in place, concrete poured, and walls began to rise up. Aha! It is a structure they are making, but what are they thinking? It is so low most surely it will flood, or eventually be inundated by melting snow. But the men laboured on.

Next, truckloads of dirt arrived, dumping their loads within and without the multi levelled emerging walls of the sloping edifice. Aha! — we realised as days passed. What we watched was not the building itself but it’s above ground built foundation now becoming buried beneath the steadily accumulating soil.

I noticed the men they worked: busy and with purpose. At times they would all huddle round one man in particular who always wore a white hard hat. They would nod, peer into a large paper he was holding, ask, nod again, look where he pointed, then return to their tasks.

This man in the white hard hat seemed essential to the success of their efforts. Clearly it would be only a disaster if each man built as he pleased, if each man had a different design, a different plan. It would be downright deadly when heavy machinery was used!

Do I need to spell out the lessons here? I think not. Prayerfully, before the Lord, consider these insights…

• What may seem like prolonged and pointless ploughing has purpose.

• What we sometimes think is the building is often merely the foundation – hidden from view but essential in supporting the whole.

• The Master Builder has the Master Plan. He has paid the price, knows each man’s skill, and calls each labourer into service. We must follow him completely lest all our building be only disaster and death.

• What looks ugly and unfinished now will one day be completed… a thing of newness and beauty… a thing the Master Builder had in mind all along.

In addition to the scriptures, tent-making, and evangelism, the Apostle Paul must also have known a thing or two about construction. He reminds us,

“… no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ… If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.” (1 Cor. 3:11, 14-15)

More tomorrow…

To hear Pastor Andrew’s Sunday message, go to the Facebook page of Lincoln Baptist Church, or link to the livestream from the church website.