I build on the pleasant days, but I don’t build for the pleasant days.
The best days to build are mild. Slightly breezy. They also happen to be the best days to sit and lounge, to go on a hike, to kayak along a lake.
They are days that don’t convey a need for shelter. They don’t communicate urgency.
They are not sun scorched days where the heat is beating down the moment the sun rises, strength being exhausted almost immediately from baking and lack of cover.
They are not wind-driven rain days where the skies seem to be dumping buckets and nothing is left remotely dry or un-tussled.
They are not bitter cold days where the wind whips and freezes any exposed flesh raw.
And, regardless of what type of day, the building best happens in the light. In the morning. When strength is recently renewed and mind is recently rested.
It takes discipline to build well when scorching sun, dumping rain, whipping cold and darkness seem far away and of not immediate concern.
It would be easy to rush along, short step, leave out others all together, in the interest of being done.
But I build on the pleasant days because unpleasant days will come. And I’d much rather sit snug and warm, or cool and relaxed, confident of a firm foundation under my feet and a well built shelter overhead then be scrambling to erect makeshift provision in the midst of it all – caught off guard and surprised when the wind shifts, the season changes and the light fades. Or, as my sister in law said, “This is what we’ve been preparing for…when the rubber hits the road.”
It’s been a long while of pleasant days in my life. There has definitely been the occasional cloud and rain storm. Some wind and warmer-than-desired days. But all in all, it’s been temperate. Great building weather.
And I’m thankful for the time I have had to build, and those who have been building well alongside of me. Thankful for gifted pastors and teachers who have talked about things like having a theology of suffering before encountering suffering, so that when that storm rains down and buffets the house, there is some extra structure and flashing there for just that purpose.
After a pleasant spring, the storms are rolling in these days. And not just the little rain showers, but the big, dumping, torrential, crazy windy storms that pull up trees and take out the power.
I’m not saying it’s easy to be weathering these storms, but I am encouraged and surprised by a few things. It is cozy inside. It’s warm and we feel safe. The foundation we’ve been building on – Jesus Christ – He’s proving to be the solid anchor and hope that we need. The strength of this foundation is being tested beyond what it ever has gone through before in my life, and He’s proving true.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” Matthew 7:24-25