Building Things -

As a child I could never understand why it took so long to build something and yet was so easy to tear it down (one day I’d carefully stacked a bunch of blocks and a cousin had come along and accidentally knocked it over).

All my hard work gone in an instant!

I still wonder why life works that way. A book or movie that takes months or years to create is read or watched within hours. A painting or song that takes weeks is glimpsed or enjoyed within minutes.

But there is a reason that building things take time. Why building something is difficult: Because it matters.

Building, crafting, honing, takes time because it’s valuable.

It’s easy to criticize, to point out the flaws and imperfections, to destroy.

It’s also easy (and tempting) to find the shortcut, the fastest route.

But just as in the story about the three little pigs (the houses made of twigs and straw were easily blown away, but the one made of bricks was not destroyed by the big bad wolf) how you build matters just as much as the fact that you try to build anything at all.

It’s no secret that building something takes commitment and effort. It’s something that few people want to do (they want to have done it, but the daily steps? Nah). That’s what makes building something important.

Use whatever gifts you posses to build something, no matter how small. It may be something no one sees, but that’s even better—trust, community, a legacy, a pathway for others to follow—is something most people need.

It matters.

It takes time.

So you’d better start now…brick by brick.