Love Builds a House

Lord God, you build houses. Please build my house.

I prayed these words aloud as I drove home from work one day last fall. I had been praying for months for family and friends whose relationships were under stress or in trouble, and also, praying for those of us still deeply longing for love and companionship to arrive. While navigating the late afternoon traffic and usual stop lights on my daily route, those words came into my mind and surprised me with their distinction, their significance.

Lord God, you restore foundations. You repair ruins. 

You’re the Builder and the Architect. Heal us. 

As last summer drew to a close, I had to ask myself—when it became clear that I was at the end of what I had hoped would be a beginning: Did I love well? I hope I did; I hope I did the best I could—even while some things hurt—and I hope I was patient, and gentle, and kind. But now I’m asking, did I build? Because love builds. I want a home, and a marriage, and a family that builds each other up. And I want to build up others.

As I look back over that relationship, how our conversations unfolded and the place where we ended up, I examine my heart and wonder: Was I trying to impress him? And why was I so afraid he wouldn’t accept me if I didn’t?

Lord God, fix what is broken in my heart. I need you. 

Thank you for accepting me, and for never leaving me.

Fill up all the empty places in my heart.

Give me eyes to see the dreams you have for me; 

Give me ears to hear the words you sing over me.

You alone are my hope.

Just five days after I prayed my prayer asking God to build my house, I remembered this verse from 1 Corinthians 8:

“...knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

 The Greek word here for “puffs up” is phusioó, and while translated to mean that knowledge makes one arrogant (like puffing up one’s chest) it’s related to the word phuó, which means, “produces, springs up, brings about” (like a sprout coming up from a seed).* Interesting enough. Perhaps I thought that love would spring up simply by letting ourselves be known, if only we could be so vulnerable. But some ancient manuscripts of this letter to the Corinthian church say that “the one who loves truly knows.” There is an intimacy in knowing, but only when love is its source. The real kicker that I find in that verse, however, is this: the Greek word for “builds up” is oikodomeí, from the root oikos, meaning “house” and domeo, meaning “build.” So while knowledge may produce something in the beginning, or even for the short term, it doesn’t last. But love? Love edifies. Love builds a house. (The early Latin word for edify, aedificare, essentially means the same: to erect a house.**) Knowing someone is different than building with someone, and building is the hard work.

Even under the best conditions, plants which had once sprung up begin to wither as the seasons change, but a well-built house lasts for generations to come. And that’s ultimately what we’re building: a house, a family, generations.


When I was a freshman in college, my friend Joy said to me, “He will make the right guy for you, attracted to you, FOR you. You won’t have to perform, impress, or try to shine.” I wrote those words on a Post-It that is still tucked inside the pages of a little New Testament I used at the time. And though I haven’t always gotten it right, those words have stuck inside my heart for the past seventeen years, too. I don’t have to impress. I don’t have to puff myself up. I just have to love.

O Lord, help me turn my eyes away from myself, for now that I have you, I know this world needs you, too. Help me instead to be a builder— to build up others.

Lord God, give me the strength and understanding to co-labor with you;

 Put a hammer in my hand, help me read the blueprint that you have written. 

I can’t do this without you.

I’m eager to begin this work. 

While my intentions are good, and indeed, we must be builders, I realize there is more work to be done on the inside. I can only love because God has first loved me, because He has filled up my heart. He gently adjusts my course, saying to me:

I will build the house. You will invite people into it.

The house, my heart, His dwelling. A place where hospitality reigns and love is supreme.

O Lord, let Your love build up in me and build me up. 

Let Your love pour the foundation and do the heavy lifting. 

Let Your love put everything into place, and over everything, put on love.

O God, I trust that as you work in me, you are building my future.

You know the generations to come, and you have a place for us all.

O Sovereign God, the builder of houses. Please build my house.

“In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” 

Ephesians 2:22 ESV

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith— that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:17-19 ESV

“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved”

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 NIV

“Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,”[a] bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.”  

Hebrews 3:3-6 NIV

“For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

1 Corinthians 3:9 TNIV

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1 ESV

*Phuo = https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Lexicon.show/ID/G5453/phuo.htm
Phusioo = https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Lexicon.show/ID/G5448/phusioo.htm 

**I’ve taken some liberty with the Greek in this essay. Oikodomeí means “to build, to edify” while oikodomeó actually means “to build a house.” My point is that the root words of oikodomeí mean “build” and “house” respectively. ((https://biblehub.com/greek/3618.htm)) The significance remains the same in Latin for the English word edify:

“The Latin noun aedes, meaning "house" or "temple," is the root of aedificare, a verb meaning "to erect a house." Generations of speakers built on that meaning, and by the Late Latin period, the verb had gained the figurative sense of "to instruct or improve spiritually." The word eventually passed through Anglo-French before Middle English speakers adopted it as edify during the 14th century. Two of its early meanings, "to build" and "to establish," are now considered archaic; the only current sense of edify is essentially the same as that figurative meaning in Late Latin, "to instruct and improve in moral and religious knowledge." ((https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/edify)) 

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

Excavating Landmines: Forgiveness and Infilling

Forgiveness is a pathway with a thousand bolted doors.

-Sandra McCracken

The bullet gray clouds of winter urged me to stay inside one quiet Saturday morning just over a year ago, and with the earnest desire for warmth on a cold day it pleased me to accept, steaming cup of coffee in hand. Sitting in the wingback reading chair in my living room, I’d been working through some theological reflections in a book by Rose Marie Miller, titled From Fear to Freedom: Living as Sons and Daughters of God. I realized while reading this book that I still had layers of unforgiveness that I thought I’d worked through, but clearly hadn’t. I’d unlock one bolted door, as Sandra McCracken calls it, only to come to another, and another, thinking to my frustrated self, “I thought I worked through this already!” Each time the pain or the fear to which the unforgiveness had attached itself would rear its loveless head. I recognized how it affected my relationships by preventing me from trusting, and also how it short-changed the complete work of grace in me. Having received grace upon grace, I needed to extend forgiveness upon forgiveness. The realization struck me, surely and deliberately, though at the same time innocuously, like a good-willed six-year-old wearing over-sized boxing gloves, whose hit was kind, but clear spiritual therapy. 

Miller quotes her friend James, saying, “Do you forgive with your heart, your memory, your body?” She adds, “Forgiveness of others has to be a total thing.” It was then I decided I had to do something—tangibly—to deal with the wounds that were still there ticking away, even quietly most days. I had forgiven considerably in my heart, but my mind kept going back to what was said and done. I had to release the memories, and I had to do it not just in my mind, but also with my hands.

I grabbed a notebook and pen and started writing down each thing as it came to me. Each word, each action, each sinking feeling that surfaced. My thoughts flowed through fingers, ink, and script. I filled up three pages. I knelt, I wept, and I prayed out loud over each line: “I forgive ____ for ____.” And then I placed those pages in the fireplace. Striking a match with the flip of a wrist, I reached forward with the light. The paper caught, and I felt the warmth of the fire briefly strengthen upon my chest. I witnessed with my eyes the quick shriveling up and turning to light-as-air ash. To my surprise, I found I was capable of forgiving with my heart, my memory, and yes, even my body. It made this forgiveness a total thing. It’s amazing to me that today, a year later, I have no recollection of the actual words or specific wounds I wrote on those papers!

My pastors say that in order to have healthy relationships, we have to dig up our landmines so that they don’t explode on other people. In other words, we have to deal with our stuff. The last thing you want is collateral damage. So, you do the work. You carefully, with precision, locate and excavate the landmines. 

Kneeling before God on my living room floor that morning, I found a way to dig up my landmines. But instead of future craters, I now had cavities left behind—holes in the ground where the wounds once dwelled. I knew something more had to happen. Because true healing is restorative, I asked God to fill up all the empty places. No craters, no cavities—only God’s infilling. This is the better holy ground: where God meets me—where I am transformed and the land is restored to wholeness, peace, that promised shalom.

“Arriving at a place of healing and forgiveness, whether it be toward others or ourselves or both, brings this weepless peace. When I no longer feel the familiar pang of a past hurt, or when I search my heart but find that the spark of long-smoldering anger has been truly extinguished, I feel the drying of my eyes as though by some divine hand: a personal brush of my cheek that sweeps all the way to my soul. I breathe more deeply; the band around my heart has been loosed. And this small but mighty restoration, I wonder, must be a foretaste of life in the resurrected spiritual body. Like hearing my name called intimately by a nearby gardener who transforms before my very eyes into the living God, and who then sweeps me up as well in the transformation.”

— Carolyn Weber, Holy is the Day: Living in  the Gift of the Present

Oh, my restoring heart.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been poring through the Old Testament book of 2nd Kings. In chapter 3, the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom went out into the desert to fight against Moab, and they inquired of the prophet Elisha about what the Lord would have them to do. Elisha declared, “This is what the Lord says: Make this valley full of ditches. For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle, and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord; he will also hand Moab over to you.”

I love it when the original language in the Bible uses the same word repetitively. Though I don’t know all of the Hebrew and Greek grammar rules, the nuance of the text in these moments seems to whisper to me, “Pay attention here.” For instance, Isaiah 26:3 uses the phrase shalom shalom, translated “perfect peace.” God calls himself hayah asher hayah, “I Am that I Am” in Exodus 3:14. So here, in 2 Kings 3:16, God tells them to make gebim gebim. After they dug these “ditches and ditches” in the desert, the Bible tells us they saw water flowing from the direction of Edom, and the ditches they dug were filled! As promised, the men and animals were refreshed and the Lord gave them victory in battle.

Seeking restoration may feel like thirsting in a desert. Forgiveness may feel impossible. It may look like kneeling, weeping, and burning away the past, or like back-breaking, getting-your-hands-dirty, in-the-trenches work. But in doing so, we get to partner with God in the work He’s begun in us. “Forgive as the Lord forgave you,” He tells me. And when I do, He reminds me that from Him is fullness, abundance, and overflowing; rivers flow from His throne to give life on every side, to bring healing not just to me, but to the world. For health, and healing, and victory, and freedom are given in Christ, “who fills everything in every way” (Eph. 1:23), that is, panta en pasin pléroumenou: “all in all filling.”

Pay attention here— 

Ditches and ditches, all in all filled by I Am that I Am, perfect peace. I feel it now.

There’s an infilling happening as love satisfies the empty places left behind and wells begin to spring up in this bright, new land.

Photo by Igor Kasalovic on Unsplash

It Was Quiet

It had been a rough week, and this day was the most turbulent of all. They talked and they talked. The waitress looked at them in a way that reassured her, like they were lucky. She came to inform them the restaurant was closing, then on their way out, she said to him, "She's beautiful." "Yes, she is," he answered.

They moved to the parking lot and talked some more on the still warm hood of her car. It was dusk. He made many promises. He was the kind of affectionate of which she had always dreamed. They knew each other well and had always had a way of working through every situation, but this one terrified her for all the possibilities that it could turn out to be. She loved him, she wanted him, and she never needed him more than she did in that moment.

Friday came, and she told him she just wanted to relax. She was tired of drowning; tired of tears and worry and too many emotions to bear. She just wanted him near. So, he suggested they go for a drive. He held her hand. Somewhere along a dark road she said, "I'm really thankful for you... I'm thankful we've made it this far," to which he gently replied, "Me too," and lifted her hand to his tender kiss. She needed him, she loved him, and she never wanted him more than she did in that profound moment.

There was something safe about being with him that night. Though unsure of the future, she felt secure in his presence. The past was simply a record, the future a mere wish. His steadiness in the present was all that she had.

It was quiet.

She whispered breathlessly; he leaned in and embraced her.

She wanted him, she needed him, and she never loved him more than she did in that quiet, honest, vulnerable moment.

Love, Value & Identity ~ Part I

One of my favorite places in Nashville is the Main Branch Library, downtown on 7th and Church. After dining outside on a recent, windy, Sunday afternoon, I stepped into the calm warmth of the library to 'find what I could find.' I had no plan except for the possibility of finding something I've never read before by C.S. Lewis (I recently finished re-reading The Four Loves). I stepped up to the catalog and wrote down a few call numbers, happy to find that one such number- 230.2- was right in front of me. What better place to start than right there! As I perused each book, each work, each colorful binder, I decided to pass on The Joyful Christian and slid from the shelf a book whose title and author both gleamed at me-- Love and Living, by Thomas Merton. I searched a few of the pages and stumbled upon this passage:

"Our conception of ourselves is bound to be profoundly affected by our conception- and our experience- of love. And our love, or our lack of it, our willingness to risk it or our determination to avoid it, will in the end be an expression of ourselves: of who we think we are, of what we want to be, of what we think we are here for."
~Thomas Merton, Love and Living


I've been through all four of these stages and am only now compelled- or perhaps able- to clearly define them and who I've learned I am because of them. Here, I'll begin with the last and briefly share them in reverse order.

In my mid-twenties I was determined to avoid love. It was the most selfish time of my life. I had no real desire to have children, nor felt the need to ever get married. Admittedly, it was wonderful, and I was carefree. I thought love was an obligation to those who chose it, and I, in my independence, had no desire to be attached to such a thing. But my heart changed forever about a month before my 25th birthday; my first niece was born. A love unlike any other affection I'd ever felt for my family or friends, and completely unlike Eros, led me to (if I may borrow an image from the Psalms) "the rock that is higher than I." This love was profound. This love swelled and breathed. This love made me think of something greater than myself. This love meant that Love is inevitable.

My willingness to risk love is trickier to define. I suppose hospitality is a risk. I've discovered that you learn who you are when you give of yourself because you learn what you are capable of, or not, your strengths as well as your weaknesses. It may energize me to express hospitality, to give joyfully- without expectation from another- but even I get worn out when I'm risking my heart only to receive little or nothing in return. The risk of love, largely, is not knowing whether you will be loved in return, or especially equally so. And there will always come a point when you have to decide whether or not risking it will be worth it.

To lack love, in particular areas, is something most of us seem to know all too well, and this, in our human view, is where we put too much emphasis on our identity. I know the pain of years lived without true intimacy. I know loneliness. I know how crippling it feels to fight, and fail, and fight some more against the lies that I'm not loved, or not loved well-enough, and that therefore I must be unlovable. God (who is Love Himself) knows love is necessary and important to our well-being-- so important, that when asked what the Lord's will is, He answers, "To look after orphans and widows." The second greatest commandment is "to love your neighbor." Because we are all in need of love, love must be shared. Love must fill us up.

Our love. The love we have, the love we give, the ways in which we are loved. These tell us the greatest truths about ourselves. Whether we realize it or not we are always seeking love. Our souls require it and demand it for our healing, our health, and our happiness. Too often we are confused into thinking we require approval when what we truly need is an acceptance that is so unconditional that we succumb not to the darkness which has crept into our being but that we raise up to the light that has always been there. We already have value. Accepting and being accepted in this way gives us the strength to believe in our own value as well as the value of the other person. Love is strongest in it's each-otherness.