Episode 82 - Brick by Brick

This week I’ve been thinking about Lego. I don’t really know why, but to be fair, why not? I guess maybe because sometimes life feels like making a Lego model. You keep adding more bricks and more bricks but nothing seems to really take shape. Until suddenly towards the end, you can finally begin to see what it is you’ve been working at take shape and it all makes sense. Did you know that there are over 25,000 different types of Lego block? That’s an incredible amount! But then when you consider what you can do with those blocks, it suddenly seems comparatively tiny, because with just those blocks, you can make pretty much anything! If you can imagine it, you can probably make it. And it’s not limited to just models, I have friends who have made useful household items out of Lego, from Jewellery to coffee tables, I even have friends who have used the hands of the little men to hold their USB cables for them when not in use!

All of these possibilities from a choice of 25,000 types of brick seemed incredible, until I looked out of the window. Did you know that there are currently 118 different known elements? With probably a few hiding under the bed or behind the sofa. With just these 118 different building blocks God made the whole world and everything in it. Not just a stationary model that’s good to look at (read play with), but a beautiful dynamic world, ever changing and self-sustaining, with beauty and design beyond our conceiving. A universe that extends beyond our imagination and a world where we literally hold life in our hands. A universe with more stars in the sky than grains of sand on the earth and a world where there are more lifeforms on one person’s skin than there are people on the planet. What an amazing world we live in and what an amazing creator, who made it all, even the building blocks themselves!

My thoughts were to take one last jump though. As I wandered around St Paul’s Cathedral a number of years ago, I admired the intricate stonework and all the different types of building materials used. And I started to think about God’s true Church – not the buildings, but His people. There are, well, I don’t know how many, I haven’t done the maths, but there’s certainly quite a few of us throughout the world. And the amazing thing is that each one of us is truly unique. There’s no two of us the same. And were not haphazardly created – we’re not abstractly unique, but we’re designed and intentionally created – fit for purpose. How amazing is that? So if God can make the whole universe with just 118 different pieces, just imagine what he can do with all of us if we let Him!