Built to Withstand

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, stand a little taller...you didn't think I'd come back swinging... – Kelly Clarkson

I was up late trying to get a few things done and while trying to get those things done I turned the TV on to TLC for some background noise as I worked. One of the shows that came on was EPIC. The bases of this show is to give you a tour of some of the most EPIC homes in America, hence the title of the show being called EPIC.

This particular episode was dedicated to Epic: Log Cabins. I really wasn’t paying that much attention to the show. I would look up or turn around from time to time to get a glimpse of theses larger than life homes, but then go right back to whatever I was doing. But, one of these log cabins caught my attention, not because of its shear size but because of what the owner said while describing it.

I’m guessing they must have asked him: Can the house withstand strong storms? His response to the (I'm guessing, question) was what made me stop for a quick second, listen and then jump on here real quick to write this...I didn’t want to forget. He said that the kind of wood he used to build the home was the kind that actually grows stronger when pressure is put on it. So actually when storms come it only makes the home more secure and strong. The particular wood he used was made to withstand strong winds and storms.

I am very much paraphrasing what the man said. He did a much better job at explaining it than I am doing…haha. Remember I was hardly paying attention up until this point.

But it just blew my mind that his very home was one that was built to withstand storms. That is was the kind of home that when storms came it didn’t fall to the ground it only grew stronger. Storms were seen as a good thing, because he knew when the storms came the pressure from the storm was only making his home all that more strong.

You probably have an idea where I am going with this?

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. – James 1:2-4

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” – Matt 7:24-27

We look at our trials or storms as bad things sometimes, lets me honest. No one asks for trials! But what if those very storms that you feel are putting pressure on you were meant to do just that, because of what God knows they will produce in you and I.

Kelly Clarkson was right in singing, “what doesn’t kill you makes you strong, stand a little taller…” If your life is built on The Rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. When he is the one whom your life is built on, when the storms come, and the pressure is on, even though in the moment it may be difficult you know in the back at our mind and in the depths of your heart that this too shall pass. It won’t last forever, and all these trials and storms are doing nothing but making you and I stronger.

God can speak through anything at anytime if we will listen, and who knew that God would remind me this evening through a TV show about log cabins of all things, that you and I (when our lives are built on Christ) were built to withstand. We were built to be made stronger through storms…not weaker. We were built to grown stronger when the pressure is on! We have to change our prospective and align our thinking with God’s Word. We gotta learn to start seeing our storms and trials for what they are…character builders, faith refiners & faith testers. God's goal for your life and mine is not to make everything easy. Our lives are meant to mean something here. God's goal for you and for me is to make us holy...and that may mean that we are not always happy. God has a plan for you life. None of the pain is in vain...it all has purpose. If we will allow it to finish it's work!!! :) 

We were built to withstand!