Building Life Castles

Yesterday, I enjoyed watching a dad and his two boys building a sandcastle on the beach.

Sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear about after the two coldest days of the year. Linda has only about a month left with her job with United so we took advantage of her flight benefits one last time…on the coldest days of the year. Yes, we escaped to Florida for a couple of days. Please don’t hate me.

The dad and boys came prepared and worked hard. They had shovels and pails and all the right tools. They dug and patched, built and shaped…for over an hour. They built it at just the right place and timed it so that they would be finished by the time the tide came in, so that the tide would fill the moat. It was a beautiful work of art.

When it was finished and the water began approaching, they stood around and watched. The boys cheered when the moat filled with water. But of course, the tide kept coming. And they knew it would. It wasn’t long and the waves had turned their masterpiece into rounded blobs of sand on the wet beach. The three of them walked up the shore, their hard work for the last hour behind them with nothing to show for it.

And I thought, “That’s most people’s lives."

Many will plan and strategize, labor and toil, only to eventually see the waves of life melt away what has been built, leaving the feeling of futility. We’ve all done that with at least something in our lives. Maybe a job you fully invested yourself into, only to see it disappear. Maybe a relationship that you cultivated for years, and now it feels like those years were wasted. We’ve all had that experience to some degree.

Don’t do that with your life.

For the most part, Solomon did. He wasted his best years on personal kingdom building, pleasure seeking, and reputation shaping. He tells his story of futility in Ecclesiastes, a sort of personal journal of a big by empty life. The most powerful man in the world at the time, the wealthiest and supposedly the wisest, lived a futile life for himself, until he figured it out towards the end. "Honor and enjoy your Creator while you’re still young, before the years take their toll and your vigor wanes” (Ecclesiastes 12:1 The Message).

 All those years and all that energy behind him with little to show for it.

I hope you are not pouring your life  and energy into a giant sandcastle. By giving your life over to your creator and living for the purpose he created you for, you won’t ever have to look back with a sense of futility. A life that’s lived for him is translated into an eternity of reward.