I’ve been thinking about what I’m building with the time God has given me.
Some of that thinking is practical. I want to provide for my family, pay down debt, and have room to enjoy life with my wife. Yet alongside those desires, I feel a call toward missions and adoption, and I’m still wrestling with how they fit together. What would those commitments ask of us? How do we make room for them in the life we’re building?
I enjoy writing, and I have ideas I’d like to bring into the world. As I consider what they might become, I’m asking how that work could help us provide, give, and respond faithfully to where God leads.
As I sit with those questions, I keep returning to a passage in 1 Corinthians 3.
Paul describes Jesus Christ as the foundation. Then he speaks of what people build upon that foundation: gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw. A day is coming when the quality of the work will be revealed.
The fire will test it.
In context, Paul is addressing those who build up the church. His words make me pause before the responsibility of putting words into the world—especially words that claim to help others know Christ.
What am I hoping my work will accomplish? What am I asking it to give me?
Those questions reach into uncomfortable places.
I can want to encourage someone and also want to be admired. I can desire to serve Christ while keeping a close eye on whether anyone notices my service. I can begin with gratitude for an opportunity and gradually turn that opportunity into a test of my worth.
The motives become tangled almost without my noticing.
Perhaps you know that feeling, too. You do something worthwhile, but afterward you keep checking for a response. You replay what you said. You wonder whether it mattered. Eventually, another person’s reaction begins to carry more weight than the person you hoped to help.
I want to bring that part of myself before the Lord honestly.
Providing for my family is a real responsibility. Wanting my work to reach people is understandable. Yet neither income nor attention can answer every question about the value of what I make. I need wisdom to pursue those things without asking them to tell me who I am.
I also need wisdom to recognize when preparing for the future becomes a way of postponing obedience. It is possible to keep moving the point at which I imagine I’ll be ready: when there is more money, more time, more certainty. I don’t yet know what missions or adoption will mean for our household. I can begin by praying with Laura, listening carefully, and being willing to take the next step as it becomes clear.
For writing, faithfulness means taking care with what I say about God. It means returning to Scripture when a sentence sounds beautiful and asking whether it is true. It means being willing to revise something I love because it could mislead the person reading it.
It also means remembering that the reader is a person.
Someone may arrive at a page tired, curious, grieving, or unsure how to pray. I cannot know everything they carry. I can take responsibility for offering words with patience, humility, and care.
Earlier in this same chapter, Paul describes planting and watering, with God giving the growth. There is work to do, and there are results I cannot produce by force.
That gives me a place to begin.
Today, I can attend to the responsibility in front of me. I can love Laura. I can do my work carefully. I can write a page, examine it, and receive correction. I can ask whether what I am building helps someone turn their attention toward Jesus.
I still hope to build things that provide for our family. I hope to write books. I hope some of these ideas become useful in ways I cannot yet see.
As I pursue them, this is my prayer:
Lord Jesus, You are the foundation. Teach me to take care how I build. Examine my motives, correct my words, and help me love the people my work may reach. Give Laura and me wisdom for the responsibilities before us and courage for whatever You call us to undertake. Give me patience to serve faithfully and leave the growth with You. Amen.
—Nathan R. Dooley
Scripture for reflection: 1 Corinthians 3:5–15.
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