Brick and Mortar

I

n the summer of 2006, I developed a new afternoon routine.  On my way home from work, I would drive by my new house just to see if more progress had been made toward its completion.  Instead of driving to my apartment, I would exit the Interstate early, drive through a large neighborhood, and finally arrive at the house.

From the outside it didn’t appear much work had taken place and a peek through the windows revealed that the inside hadn’t seen much activity either.  Nonetheless, I still spent about an hour walking around the house, looking at every little nook and cranny just to make sure everything passed inspection.

The story at the house next door, however, was very different.  An entire team of brick masons was busily applying one course of brick after another, turning the wooden frame into a lovely bricked home.  From the looks of it, they had been at work most of the day and would have at least two more days of straight work before their task would be completed.

There were four masons working on one side of the house.  They worked as a beautifully orchestrated team with each one finishing his section of the wall in concert with the other masons working beside him.  No matter their position on the scaffold, each man performed the same task in exactly the same manner. 

When starting a new course of brick, each mason would place a generous layer of mortar on top of the previous row of brick.  He would then put a new brick into the fresh mortar, make a few adjustments to align the brick, scrape off the excess mortar, do the same with another brick, and so on.  The wall rose rapidly and in the 45 minutes I stood and watched them, these men placed 3 courses of brick on that wall.

What fascinated me the most, however, was not the number of bricks in the house; it was the mortar used to hold them in place.  For two weeks the bricks had been sitting on site, waiting for the masons to place them.  But without mortar, the bricks were useless.  They could be stacked against the house to form a wall, but without mortar that wall would fall and be unable to support or protect the house.  Without the mortar filing the gaps and cementing the whole wall together into one structure, the house would never hold together, much less pass inspection.

As I watched the interaction between the brick and the mortar, Jesus’ words from John 15:5 came to mind.  Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  This is the secret of the Christian life, knowing we can do nothing on our own.  We need Jesus to fill the in the gaps in our lives, to strengthen us, and to provide the means for us to weather the storms of life.

Without the Lord, we are useless, like bricks without mortar.  At the first sign of trouble, at the first strong breeze, at the first splash of rain, without Jesus, we crumble and fall.  No wonder we make so many mistakes and experience so many heartaches in life.  We try to do things on our own and in our own strength, realizing only too late that we have no strength save the strength Jesus gives us.        

It takes a lot of bricks to build a house and it takes a lot of days to build a life.  No one would ever purchase a house built with bricks and no mortar.  How is it then we settle for a life built the same way?  Jesus words are clear.  Without him, we can do nothing.  With him, we can do everything.  It’s all about brick AND mortar.  How strong are the walls of your life today?