CONSTRUCTION TAKES TIME … DESTRUCTION HAPPENS IN AN INSTANT

“Construction takes time, destruction happens in an instant”, is a saying that I’ve come up with. Most of my working life I have spent in the construction industry. When I was a kid in high school I worked as construction labor, and then later in my Junior and Senior years I worked as an electrician’s helper. Over the years I’ve tried other lines of work but the electrical trade and construction have always been what I’ve fallen back on.

You know it takes about 3 months to build the typical track home … sometimes more, sometimes less, but on average it’s about a 90 day deal. Most minor to medium commercial construction projects take around a year to build. Sure, there are some projects that are built in much less time than that, but I’m speaking in general here. The World Trade Center took six years to build and the Soviet Union 3/4th of a century.

I’m sure you’ve seen a house demolished, or video of a high rise building imploded, and we will never forget the images of the World Trade Center collapsing … not once but twice. In my line of work I’ve seen houses demolished in minutes. I’ve seen commercial buildings taken down in less than a day. The World Trade Center Towers came down very shortly after the planes crashed into them. If you think about it, even the USSR was gone in an instant, too.

I’m a little over 50 years old, and in the last 20 years I’ve seen our country and our world change. In some cases it’s been for the better in others for the worse. I think since 9-11 history will say that we went through some formative years … but will they call them transformative, reformative, or destructive? I don’t know, I suspect that they’ll be considered all of that and more.

Since the early 1990’s there’s been an active campaign to change how we think and feel about a lot of things. Whether it be on social, moral, political, cultural, or religious topics. As I said before, construction takes time destruction happens in an instant. Things that we Americans have taken for granted are under attack and targeted for destruction. For example, the 1st and 2nd amendments are under direct assault. The Bill of Rights has been in place for over two centuries, but the two best know amendments, the 1st and 2nd amendments, may very well be destroyed by people both from within and from outside our government.

Earlier this year religion came under attack by the federal government. The attack was aimed at the Catholic church in direct violation of the 1st amendment. I won’t go into the details of it, but you will recall it was centered around the unpopular healthcare law and birth control.

The 2nd amendment has been under constant attack ever since the Waco massacre that was caused by the federal government. And then of course it always comes under further attack whenever guns are used by evil people in a violent shooting rampage. And we’ve witnessed our right to bear arms come under attack when a teenage boy recently was shot and killed in Florida by a man that was carrying a gun … that man had a license to carry a concealed firearm.

If Americans aren’t careful, we will soon see the 1st and 2nd amendments destroyed right in front of our unwatchful eyes….and they’ll be gone in an instant.

But what is troubling me most these days is the constant attack that traditional marriage has come under. Not that long ago if anyone suggested that marriage between two people of the same sex would ever be considered equal to traditional marriage you’d have been laughed out of the room. No one would have taken that thought seriously. Some people would have said that thought was so out of hand that it wasn’t worth discussing.

Now, not only is that topic being discussed, but in some states same sex marriage has been legalized. In California even though the people of the state voted to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, the will of the people was over turned by the court. The will of the people was disregarded and now same sex marriages are taking place in California.

Today we hear of people and companies being assaulted for daring to utter that fact that they support traditional marriage. I can’t believe it myself, that I even have to use the term “traditional marriage”. I don’t think a change like this is good for a country whose motto is “In God We Trust”.

If marriage is to be redefined to include same gender couples then where else shall marriage go? Should plural marriages be deem equal to traditional marriages? Shall marriages between blood relatives be recognized, will it be OK for mothers to marry their sons? Fathers to marry daughters, brothers marring sisters? If that sounds farfetched to you, it shouldn’t … after all, just a few months ago same sex marriages weren’t recognized anywhere within the USA. Now if you dare to oppose same sex marriage you’re liable to be accused of hate speech, or a hate crime….or worse yet a “thought hate crime”!

If marriage is refined to include anything but the joining of a man and a woman together then marriage will have been destroyed….in an instant.

I’ll leave you with this passage from the bible…Romans Chapter 1:20-32 (NIV)

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.


26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.


28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

So I’ll ask you…do you approve?

There you have it.

Pass it along if you like or let me know if I don’t have a clue.

Eddie