Designed to Fail

I was raised in a family of tradesman.  My grandpa is still laying carpet well into his 70's, and my late grandad was a shipwright and construction worker.  My dad is a carpenter and my brother and I both are trained as journeyman mechanical insulators.  As I grew up I was often exposed to many facets of construction between home remodeling and church renovations.  I remember the first day I worked eight hours:  my dad set me up to nail the floor/deck of our upstairs room addition with a bucket of eight-penny nails and a 16oz. hammer.  We snapped some chalk lines and it was on!

Construction projects, like life, provide many opportunities to learn from mistakes.  It also provides many opportunities to follow builders and repair their mistakes!  Some of these repairs could be due to improvements in specifications or codes.  But quite often it is clear repairs must be made because of shoddy craftsmanship!  The evidence of cutting corners can be hidden behind walls, above ceilings, under floors, and it is likely years later before the structure reveals its faults.  Structural changes might also be necessary because of a design flaw.  After production it is discovered that the architects or engineers had neglected to factor significant issues into the design.

In my university days, I took a course in geology.  Our professor showed pictures of a house built near a steep slope.  Instead of constructing four houses on adequate lots, the builder had tried to squeeze in a fifth lot.  Because of the type of expansive soil in the area, she believed the small retaining wall would not be able to support the hillside at the back of the property.  She took pictures immediately after the project was complete and every month came back to take another picture.  Sure enough, within a year or two the entire slope had broken through the wall and smashed the back side of the house.  The house was condemned and later demolished.  Because of her background in geological studies, my professor was able to confidently predict the failure of the design.

Nothing that man does in this world is perfect.  There is no such thing as a "perfect" construction project.  Things go wrong, designs must be revised, and mistakes are made.  But even if man was flawless in his building there would need to be maintenance.  A perfectly painted wall fades, and a well-designed footing can settle and crack.  The best roofs will last about thirty years and tile grout becomes dingy with mold.  Man's best efforts are designed to fail because man is stricken with sin.  Heeding the modern wisdom of the world is compared by Christ to a man who builds upon sand.  When the waves crash and the winds blow, great will be the fall of that house because it had no foundation.

How foolish would it be for the fallen house to be built again with a revised set of drawings, taking in account waves and wind yet with no thought of a foundation!  The world is destined for failure.  Amazingly the Bible teaches us the world will not be destroyed by the folly of men, climate change, or greenhouse gases:  God will step in and destroy it Himself!  2 Peter 3:9-12 says,  "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. ¹¹ Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, ¹² looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?"  Only God is fully able to create and destroy.  Man is certainly destructive, and his only hope for salvation is in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:22-27:  "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' ²³ And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' ²⁴ "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: ²⁵ and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: ²⁷ and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."  I always found it annoying to build sand castles because it wasn't long before my labour was erased by the encroaching tide or some kid would knock it down when I wasn't looking.  Man in himself is no more stable than a sandcastle.  The days breeze by and even the memory of man fades into nothing.  Headstones crack and crumble, and the body decays and turns to dust.

Jesus says in John 11:25-26,  "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. ²⁶ And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"  Christ is the Chief Cornerstone, an everlasting Foundation to build upon.  Let us take heed where we build!  If we build on Christ we need only build once!