'PUSH OUT AND BUILD'

 I bought an Asterix book today. I'm not really into Asterix but this one was a little different. It was subtitled 'Roman Fort'. Every page has parts of a Roman Fort that you can push out and make into......you've guessed it, a fort. Each piece is numbered to make construction easy (it will never be easy enough for me). It sat in the living room most of the day until a wee while ago when I looked at it again. At the top it had the instruction 'PUSH OUT AND BUILD'. 

It made me think of the way God would want some of us to use our lives. Not to build fortresses to keep us from being hurt and to keep out some people that we'd rather not bother with, but to boldly push out beyond our safe lives and build trust, build relationships, friendships, even within our own families. Now, all buildings need a cornerstone. It's a very important stone since all other stones will be set in reference to this one, and it will determine the position of the whole building.

 I'd like to be a strong and relevant cornerstone, but I'm quaking in my 'Kickers' at the thought of it. HOW would I begin? WHERE would I begin? I'm looking further along the coffee table. Ah! There it is! The 'instruction book'. It's got everything I need. It even starts with 'In the beginning...........' so there's no corner cutting. Now, I'm not expecting that all the instructions will be easy, but if it says that they can all be done, then I believe they can, because God doesn't write an instruction book to follow without giving us the tools to do the job.

Our families and communities are potential construction sites.


Let's start reading the manual, begin to lay the foundations, and see what we can build.