BUILDING WALLS

            I saved a story a few years ago that expressed the danger of building walls to keep other people from hurting us. It was written by Dr. Mickey Anders, who in turn gives credit to Dr. Joel Gregory of the Southern Baptist Convention:

            I can still remember a sermon that I heard Joel Gregory preach at the Southern Baptist Convention in 1988. He built the sermon around a gripping illustration. He told how there was a castle on the English coast owned by an landlord, but no one currently was living there. Vandals were coming in and destroying the place. So he hired a contractor to build a nice rock wall around the castle. The fee was agreed upon and the contractor began his work.

            But after a short time the contractor began having trouble finding rocks for the wall. So he called the owner to complain about the situation. The owner sharply replied, "I don't care where you get the rocks, I want you to build that wall!"

            Some time later the owner came to see the progress of the work, and found a beautiful high wall. He was so impressed with the fine work the contractor had done. It was a perfect wall for his castle. But then he went through the wall, and was stunned to find that there was no castle! The contractor explained, "There were all these wonderful rocks in that run-down old castle, so I used them."

            That is the folly of anyone who is so prejudiced that they do not open themselves up to the grace of God that can come through another human being. We think we are protecting ourselves, we are protecting something of cherished value, so we build a wall. But when the wall is built, we find that we have torn down everything of value within ourselves.