Building by Generation

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

Several years ago, I spent much of a day at a homestead that has been in a branch of my family since the 1800s. It is timber land, and I was walking through it with a forester, planning to harvest some very tall hardwood trees. Then the forester pointed out good places to plant new seedlings.

Suddenly I was overcome by the realization that my brother and I were about to harvest trees planted by people we had never met – and we were about to plant trees that would be cut down by people we almost certainly would never know. The land and its trees belonged to generations past, present and to come. We were temporary caretakers.

As Christians, we are building on a foundation laid down long ago by Paul and others who first proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now it is our turn to build. We don’t have to lay a foundation. That is sure and strong. And we don’t have to do someone else’s part, just the part – widely known or barely seen -- that is ours in the time and place we live. 

We have the opportunity to “choose with care how to build” on the foundation, or we can choose not to. But we each have gifts given to us by God, and if we don’t offer them, something is missing that Christ wants to give the world. So it is our turn to answer the question, “How does God want me to build for the sake of the Gospel and the world?”

God’s peace,

Katie