A builder or a wrecker?

While on my mission, I accumulated a lot of talks-on-CD (missionaries are somewhat limited to what they can listen to, and one can only take so much EFY). One of the talks I acquired was John Bytheway's "What are you carrying in your backpack?" talk. If you ever get a chance, listen to it - even though he's addressing preteens and teenagers, his message can apply to all. One of the things he references is this poem:

"I passed one day through a lonely town
And saw men tearing a building down.
With a ho-heave-ho and a husky yell,
They swung a beam and a side wall fell.
I asked the foreman, 'are these men skilled?
The kind you'd hire if you had to build?'
'Oh no,' he chuckled, 'no indeed.
The common laborer is all I need.
Why I can destroy in a day or two
What builders have taken weeks to do,'

I thought to myself as I went on my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
Strengthening lives by rule and square.
Shaping my peers to a well-made plan,
Helping them be the best they can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks around
Content with the labor of tearing down?"
--Author Unknown

I try to be a Builder. But it gets hard sometimes, especially when "misery loves company." Have you ever noticed how people almost get mad at you if you don't hop on the bandwagon to their let's-bash-everything-fest? Being a Wrecker certainly seems like the more popular choice. 




It may not be the "in" thing to be, but I want to be a Builder. It makes the world a prettier place.

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