The Shinarites ”said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks’” while Abram left his home behind and struck out into the unknown “as the Lord had told him.” They “settled” in the plain while Abram “traveled” from place to place. They said, let’s build ourselves a city with a tower to heaven, but he built a humble altar of worship and pitched a tent. They said “let us make a name for ourselves” but he “called on the name of the Lord.” They didn’t want to be scattered all over the face of the earth, while Abram followed God from Ur to Haran to Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan.

Here’s the incredible irony. Everything they desperately wanted God freely gave to Abram, and much more. Everything they feared came upon them, while God settled Abram’s fears and carried him through difficult times into abundance, promise and legacy. They wanted to hole up away from the wide world while God thrust Abram out into the world and made him a blessing to many nations. They wanted a name and got nothing but confusion. God gave Abram a new name that lasts to this day.

Abram trusted God without evidence. He put his family, his fortune, his faith and his future into God’s hands, trusting an unsubstantiated promise. He went out not knowing where he was going, but he had a living word from a living God. He wandered in tents, exposed to the elements but full faith, fully surrendered. In exchange, God gave him protection, peace and favor with those around him, a great name and eventually a place to settle and call home. His only monument was an altar of surrender, and what did God have to work with in the natural? A barren woman who laughed at the promise and her 100-year-old husband.

Man has kingdoms. Lots of them. And they’re impressive, no doubt. I have kingdoms. Mostly little ones. In reality, we all tend to have our own little kingdoms we’re working on. But God has a great big Kingdom, and he operates his differently than we do ours. 

Here are some questions I continually ask myself. Whose kingdom am I building? Am I settling somewhere, getting comfortable and surrounding myself with protection, or am I letting myself get thrust out for the sake of others? Am I building any monuments to myself, even little ones? Am I helping someone else build a monument to themself or to a group’s hard work and smart planning? Am I still willing to risk everything to follow Jesus, to go whenever and wherever he might lead?

Some years after the flood of Noah’s day, a bunch of people got together and moved to a cozy little plain in Shinar (Babylonia). They baked up a ton of bricks and built a city with a massive tower in the middle (a ziggurat). Their motivation was to band together, muster their collective strength and wealth and make a name for themselves. Oh, and they wanted to build something that would reach to heaven, representing their amazing mad ”skills”.

On the surface you might think that these people were just acting on common sense. I mean, isn’t that pretty much what everyone does? You get together, build a city, put up a wall, pool your resources, fight off the bad guys and live happily ever after with your family and a little garden out back, right?

The catch is that they knew about God, the history of the garden, the fall and the flood. They knew God had a way of doing things, but they deliberately chose to leave God out of their plans. They wanted their own thing, something great that would be a monument to what they could accomplish without him. Of course, you know the rest of the story. God takes one look, doesn’t disagree that they have amazing skills, but foresees the danger of their rebellious independence and in mercy stops it before they have a chance to pull it off and self-destruct in a lifestyle of arrogance and self-indulgence. At the end of the day, they got off pretty easy.

A little segway. Clarity by contrast is a beautiful thing. Bite into a Gala apple from Wal-Mart and you’ll think you’ve got a really crisp, refreshing apple. But then sink into a Pink Lady from a local health food store and strap your taste buds down, cause it’s a world of difference. Or take that blue shirt you bought 2 years ago. It’s still a deep blue in your mind, even though you know you’ve washed it a million times. You wear it over and over, thinking it still looks great. But then one day you see it in an old picture and realize how faded it has become.

Ok, the point. Tomorrow I want to contrast the “Shinarites” from Genesis 11 with the story that immediately follows in Genesis 12. This is where it gets good.

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Another story from Deidox that steps on my toes. It’s an eye-opening look into the life of a police officer on Skid Row in LA. As a follower of Christ, he’s called to love people and see them like Jesus sees them. Listen to the way he describes Skid Row.

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It always helps to get your head pulled out of your…er, out of the sand, so you can look around and see the bigger picture. I watched this new short film by Deidox a few days ago and was suddenly reminded that I’m part of this big family serving Jesus all over the earth. It’s a family full of amazing, ordinary people who are walking in obedience and choosing to love people despite the sacrifices. This isn’t some dramatic story, but it’s real and it hit home with me.

“A lot of people thought what I was doing was foolish, and they probably were right. In the eyes of the world, I think it is foolish. But God has a different strategy. He tends to choose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”