“There’s a big difference between building a castle and building a kingdom.”

A thought by Bob Goff from his book, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People (p. 41). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) 

Have you ever built a sand castle or maybe a Lego castle?  Have you?

Bob says, “We actually build castles all the time, out of our jobs and our families and the things we’ve purchased. Sometimes we even make them out of each other. Some of these castles are impressive too. Lots of people come to admire what we’ve built over the course of our lives and tell us what great castles we have. But Jesus told His friends we weren’t supposed to spend our lives building castles. He said He wanted us to build a kingdom, and there’s a big difference between building a castle and building a kingdom.”

Bob goes on, “You see, castles have moats to keep creepy people out, but kingdoms have bridges to let everyone in. Castles have dungeons for people who have messed up, but kingdoms have grace. There’s one last thing castles have—trolls. You’ve probably met a couple. I have too. Trolls aren’t bad people; they’re just people I don’t really understand. Here’s the deal: it’s how we treat the trolls in our lives that will let us know how far along we are in our faith. If we want a kingdom, then we start the way grace did, by drawing a circle around everyone and saying they’re in. Kingdoms are built from the people up. There’s no set of plans—just Jesus.

“There are plenty of people I don’t understand. I suppose some are trolls and some aren’t. God doesn’t see people the way I do, though. The ones I see as problems, God sees as sons and daughters, made in His image. The ones I see as difficult, He sees as delightfully different.

He later says, “God wants me to love the ones I don’t understand, to get to know their names. To invite them to do things with me. To go and find the ones everyone has shunned and turned away. To see them as my neighbors even if we are in totally different places. You’ll be able to spot people who are becoming people who don’t look like them or act like them or even believe the same things as them. They treat them with love and respect and are more eager to learn from them than presume they have something to teach.”

So, are you ready to change jobs, from being a castle builder to a kingdom builder?