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
