Settled in for Eternity

Written by Ashley Freytag, West Africa Initiative Team Member

Several nights ago, I drank a coke just before bed. As I lay there trying to fall asleep (for two hours) the words that my dad used to say while tucking me in at night echoed in my head, “Now close your eyes and lay real still”. I tend to flip a hundred times before I actually fall asleep. I thought maybe choosing one position and sticking to it, hence the “laying still part”, might help me to fall asleep. It didn’t. My mind raced. Was this due to the coke or was this just one of those nights? I wasn’t sure. Or maybe it was because I had read the Bible before bed. Most nights that has a calming affect, but this night, God got my attention and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had read. All of my thoughts mixed with the verses I had just read led me to ask myself, “Where was I truly settled?”.

All of this started with 1 Corinthians, chapter 3. Paul is talking to the Corinthian church and he uses the image of a builder building a building to illustrate how they, or we as Christians, build others up in Christ and teach them in his ways. He warns the builders to take caution in how they build upon the foundation that is Jesus. In other words, he is warning me, as a Christian, to pay attention and be careful in how I build others up in Christ. This caught my attention because I am not always intentional in my relationships to build others up in Christ. It kind was an eye-opening-oops-aha-I need to make a change kind of moment. Not only does Paul warn us to take caution, but he is very serious about it. Verse 13 says, “But on the judgement day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.” Put in a more practical way, in Colossians, chapter 2, verse 28, Paul also says, “So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect (or mature) in their relationship to Christ.”