Built Like That

A man once told me, “No one told you it was gonna be easy. What made you think that?”

I couldn’t help but pause because this man didn’t know every conversation I’ve ever had. He didn’t know everything that has ever been said to me. He didn’t know that no one has ever told me it was going to be easy. Yet somehow, he wasn’t wrong.

The principle behind his statement wasn’t to prove any supernatural omniscience. It was to reveal that he knew what I was up against, and that even if there was someone who told me it was going to be easy, they lied.

Last summer, I built a desk for my room with my sister. It was my first time assembling furniture, and I hated it. I hated the intricacy, I hated all the pieces, I hated how long it took, and I hated the idea of buying the furniture and having to put it together. I hated the process, but I loved the product. After I started adding my laptop, my textbooks, and my binders on top of it, I worried that it might fall. I reminded myself that I’m not a carpenter and that there’s a very high possibility that I did not put this together correctly. As I’m thinking this, I’m staring at a desk that is still standing. The desk is showing me that it’s built like that. Despite what was evident in front of me, my thoughts made me think something different. If I knew I had all the parts I needed and I knew I had all the instructions I needed, there should have been no doubt that I built my desk the way I was supposed to. I may not have known what I was doing, but the one who made the instructions did.

A few weeks later, I began reading Exodus. I got PTSD as I thought about how difficult it would have been to build a tabernacle. To have to find all the materials, carry them, and put an entire building together, outside, in the heat, all while following God’s exact instruction. The instructions weren’t simple and they weren’t short. And God never told them it would be.

It wasn’t until the end of Exodus when I realized that without the complex details, the final product wouldn’t have been correctly built. There would have been one wall shorter than the other, or a window placed where a door should be, or one missing frame that would have caused the whole building to fall down. This revelation correlated with my desk. All the nails and screws that I hated so much were some of the most important components of the final product. I still could have built it, it might have even looked sturdy, but it would have fell once I put weight on it.

That concept applied to the tabernacle, applied to my desk, and it applies to your character. The little complex things that God instructs us to do is leading to the character of the person He wants us to become. He sees the final product and He knows the tools to provide and the instructions to give. He knows what we’re up against, and He never said it was going to be easy, but He won’t make us fight it alone. Out of all the tools He provides, the most important one is Him. Though without Him, you will fall, with Him, you can’t fall.

The broken world we live in is a persistent war zone that we won’t escape until the day we leave. The only way to win is with a character of spiritual strength, endurance, and discipline. A character you can’t build on your own.

You’re not a carpenter, but He is. So let Him help you.

Building my desk was tiring, building the tabernacle was tiring, life is tiring. But what makes it more tiring is trying to build it without instructions, when the instructions are always provided. The more I read Exodus, the more I learned that the little details matter. The patience you develop through the little details is one nail in your desk. A quality that no one can see, but it’s one of the things holding you up and keeping you sturdy. Satan might mutter in your head, telling you that you’re not substantial. But the evidence is: you’re still standing.

Not everyone is going to understand why you’re doing the things you’re doing, or why it’s taking you so long to do it. They don’t have the same instructions nor do they have the same product. They’re not built like that; they’re not built like you. Rushing the process for their sake will only result in a faulty product.

And faulty products can’t handle pressure.

No one told you it was going to be easy, and the pressure is definitely on. But in order to handle that pressure, you’ve gotta be built like that.

“Stand firm, and you will win life.”

Luke 21:19 NIV