“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work.”
We all love Angry Birds.
I love it so much that I have Angry Birds- Rio, downloaded on my computer.
I get so angry at those little monkeys. Their evil grins and razor teeth taunt and tease me when I don’t direct the projection of the birds to just the right spot.
This frustration causes me to replay levels 15 times over until I am satisfied with the destruction I’ve caused and I can happily move onto a new level.
One of my squad leaders, (name drop, Michael Nicosia) recently said to me,
“Everything is prophetic.”
He said this as we were both tilling some soil in a potato patch. We weren’t moving it or shoveling it. We were simply bringing soft soil to the surface to prepare for next spring when it’s time to plant again. Through the cultivating, we found potatoes that weren’t harvested. We’d pick them up and toss them to the side.
You can probably see where I’m going with this.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been a little, okay, a lot frustrated. It has been this crunchy distaste for where I was in my relationship with God. Everything I thought I knew and that I firmly stood on was being shaken.
And honestly being a little weirded out by these World Racing, Jesus freaks, I call my teammates.
People telling me, "The Spirit told me…"
Praying for healing with such honest and fervent prayers and seeing nothing happen.
This longing to know and to be known by the Creator, yet feeling anything but.
I was too uncomfortable.
Too much unknown.
Too many questions.
None of this makes sense.
The World Race is too weird.
Frus-to-the-trated.
All these questions and frustrations manifested themselves in annoyance. Annoyance with everyone and everything. The kind of annoyance I feel when the dang monkeys in Angry Birds- Rio, won’t die.
It took digging up potatoes in November, in Moldova, to realize that the unsteady structure in Angry Birds, is a pretty accurate visualization of my faith.
Ouch.
I mean, it looks a little rinky dinky, but it can stand.
Some shots can graze it, and only a little part be destroyed.
Instead of taking the monkeys (questions, doubts, frustrations) out, I built around them.
But it only takes one perfectly directed shot for the whole thing to crumble and fall.
Demolish, knock down, raze, flatten, level, bulldoze, dismantle, disassemble.
Whichever word you want to use, that’s what the Lord is doing in me.
Which is good- really, really good.
He’s laying the solid foundation for the rest of my life.
Cement blocks of unshakable faith.
Unchanging identity.
I mean, World Race people are still weird, but God's using them to build this sturdy structure- I like to call my life.
