Building our House

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Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1

This verse has been on my mind lately. The wise woman builds up her house. Yeah, that makes sense… we build up the moral, the spirits, the atmosphere, and the joy. We also build up the physical things, the strength by feeding, the clothes in the drawers by laundry, our children’s brains by teaching… yes, we do a lot of building.

What about the last part of this verse? The foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Another way to say it is… the foolish woman tears her house down, with her own hands.

So by her own fault and with her own hands, she tears the house down. If you watch a building get torn down, it sure happens fast. In fact, a house that takes a whole year to build can be torn down in a mere matter of hours. Just HOURS!

Do you have times when you reflect on the past day and you feel like you went backwards? Me too! Maybe it’s been a long, tiring day after a hard, sleepless night, and you’ve snapped at a child or your husband. Did it take long to say that idle word? Yell just that one snotty comment, or send a mean text to your hubby? It does not take long at all… just one second. Just one second and the house begins to crumble.

Building up, on the other hand, can take hours and hours.

Let me tell you, one day I found myself on the demolition crew. I realized I had been on that crew for days and days, and my house was falling apart.

During that time I didn’t have a strong and sturdy relationship with the Master Builder. And that my friends, has to be the start of any building any wise women is going to build.

That relationship was missing in my life, but that wasn’t the only problem. The other problem I had was not forgiving. I am a ‘stuffer’ by nature, and for years I stuffed anger and hurt. As I stuffed, it grew into anger and bitterness, and forgiveness became harder and harder.

And so I started to realize that “unforgiveness” was causing me, with my own hands to tear down my house. It was tear-ing down my husband, my children, and myself- emotionally, mentally, and physically. I wanted to build up my house instead, so there were some things I began to learn.

Many of us have heard the saying that not forgiving someone is like drinking a cup of poison we meant for our enemies to drink. When we are unwilling or unable to forgive, it is a grudge towards someone that hurt you and it is a sin.

Forgiving someone, on the other hand, is giving up our right to revenge. It’s giving up our right to hurt someone back for the hurt they gave to us. Wiping the slate clean… not forgetting, not putting ourselves back in the same place where we can be hurt again… but to stop keeping score; to wipe the scoreboard of “you owe me” clean. Some synonyms for forgiveness are pardon, absolution, remission, dispensation, and mercy.

The bitterness that comes from our lack of forgiveness toward others may be stuffed really deep in our hearts. It may be tricky to spot. You may not even know you are harboring it. You may think it is forgiven and wiped clean, and then it reappears.

Not forgiving doesn’t feel very nice.

It often is a planning, thinking, and focusing on why this person is always wrong. It may look like a nagging conversation you are having in your brain with yourself. It may look like a shouting match in your head… shouting at the other person… yet they do not hear.

As time goes on, chance is pretty high that at some point, our life starts to unravel. Our marriage sees hard days, as a mommy we see long sleepless nights, we may have bills pile up and the paychecks grow thin, health is lost, or a job layoff happens. Often this is when the unforgiveness can’t be shoved down any more, and here’s the deal, we tend to take it out on whoever is around, and it tears our house down.

If you are like me, you may not even KNOW it. You may not even realize why you are so upset, angry, and hurt. It is like a referred pain. It’s really your heart hurting from the pain of unforgiveness, but on the outside it looks like it’s your circumstances. Yet it’s a pain from deep inside.

The thing that is so wonderful is that those outside circumstances can bring us to the place where we run to Jesus and seek out answers. We run to Him with our hurt, and He can heal us.

We can get to know the Master Builder, and we can get off the demolition team. We can find healing in Christ, and we can become a part of the building team.

{This article is the first in a four-part series about some things I’ve learned through my journey of forgiveness. I pray it can be a blessing to you as well!} 

Article first seen in the Spring 2017 issue of Titus 2

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6 Comments

  1. Do you have times when you reflect on the past day and you feel like you went backwards? Me too! Maybe it’s been a long, tiring day after a hard, sleepless night, and you’ve snapped at a child or your husband. Did it take long to say that idle word? Yell just that one snotty comment, or send a mean text to your hubby? It does not take long at all… just one second. Just one second and the house begins to crumble.

  2. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for loving us through your words….challenging us, encouraging and filing us with God’s love by sacrificing your time to serve your readers. I absolutely cherish you and have been following you for years. Thank you for blessing me AND my family. YOU are precious! Waiting for my children to wake up, so I can serve and love on them.

  3. Do you have times when you reflect on the past day and you feel like you went backwards? Me too! Maybe it’s been a long, tiring day after a hard, sleepless night, and you’ve snapped at a child or your husband. Did it take long to say that idle word? Yell just that one snotty comment, or send a mean text to your hubby? It does not take long at all… just one second. Just one second and the house begins to crumble.

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