A Spiritual House

You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5


We descended weightless and wide-eyed into a rush-hour mix of yellow tangs, iridescent wrasses, happy triggerfish, rainbowed parrotfish, comical goatfish with their Colonel Sanders beards, and even a snowflake moray eel. Son-in-law Josh and I joined in the fishy frolic as we swam through their playground made from acres of white coral. Masses, walls, arches, and branches bloomed from the sandy floor in every direction. Enter now with me into the microscopic throb of God’s coral reef.

Each razor-sharp wrinkle and finger is made up of thousands of empty stone cells left by jelly-soft polyps now deceased. Only the colony’s outer layer houses the current generation of polyps hiding in their tiny cup-shaped skeletons. These polyps have built on the foundation of their ancestors for hundreds of years until grand coral cities are formed. By night a polyp reaches his feathery tentacle out for feeding and by day he hides his fragile body. He is unaware of his contribution to a rising, soaring, sanctuary for all manner of tropical marine life.

We wrestle through life, eke out our living, try to serve with heart, but see little accomplished. We are jelly-soft, fragile polyps. Now Christian, take this wonder in. God causes our meager existence, our infinitesimal contribution to be added to that of thousands before us, which will be built upon by those coming after, and together we rise into a spiritual house acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. A deep and awesome miracle is at work, and you and I are a part of it. We don’t see it rise or how our life-struggles contribute; nevertheless, the temple grows. It is the true structure, a sanctuary of artistic design and mastery far more solid and real than this fleshly, polyp-life would admit. We are more than meets the eye because our contribution is added in a realm yet to be seen.

Prayer: I am awed by you, our Architect.