Somewhere along the way I forgot . . .

Last night I watched a truly great man be honored for his contributions as the president of Compassion International. It was very emotional and challenging to see person after person stand up and show what this one man's answer to God's call meant for their lives. When it was his turn to speak, Dr. Wess Stafford told a story about the building of the Notre Dame cathedral. A journalist comes to a worker with tools and a rock and asks what he's doing. The worker replies, "I'm hammering on this rock." He comes to the next worker who is doing the same thing with the same tools and asks him what he's doing. The worker replies, "Well I'm trying to make the side of this rock smooth so it will fit into the foundation somewhere over there" He walks over to the next man who's doing the same thing and asks him what he's doing, what his job is. The worker stopped and looked up with tears in his eyes and said, "I'm building a cathedral for my God."

I think somewhere along the way I've forgotten that I'm in the cathedral building business and I've moved on to just beating on rocks so that they fit in place. That's on a good day. Some days I think I might not even have that much of a clue as to what my purpose is. I'm more likely just blindly beating on a rock. It's time for that to stop. It's time for it to build the cathedral in my marriage, in my parenting, in my relationships, and in my advocacy. I knew this walking into church this morning where the message was basically that this isn't even done by me, "but Christ lives in me."

This seems unfinished because it is. It's right here, right now and I don't have further answers or plans. I don't know how to build a cathedral. I don't even know if I know the right places to hammer on the rocks. "But Christ lives in me."


Watch Compassion's service as they honor Dr. Stafford and pass the torch to the new president, Jimmy Mellado