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It's one of my favorite movies. Probably because it centers around baseball and the signficance it plays in the relationship between a father and a son. The movie is "Field of Dreams". The most famous line in the movie, maybe even more famous THAN the movie is said as the lead character decides whether or not to follow his dream of mowing down the corn field (that sustains his family) in order to put up a baseball diamond. "If you build it (he) they will come." The sentiment contains a note of hope. But it can also contain more than a drop or two of arrogance. I've heard people in religious circles use that phrase to justify building a facility. "If you build it (the structure) people will come and begin to worship at your facility." If you do A then you will get B. We have to have some amount of predictability in life or we couldn't ever make a wise decision. But there is a limit to this sort of thinking. We can't control everything in life. We aren't God. Genesis 11 contains an equally troubling account of "if we build it" hubris and pride. The people of the earth were speaking one language. They decided to "make a name for ourselves" by "building a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens". So they gather their resources and move ahead with this magnificent project into the heavens. The LORD came down to see the city and the tower. Interesting, isn't it? The people had built it. But they were still a ways from reaching God. He had to descend to reach them. God confuses the language and scatters the people (the very things the people were trying to prevent). Do you ever battle the urge to make a name for yourself? Do you ever get tempted to do things that will make life convenient for you or that would benefit you? I do. And I figure if we face it in the church, probably people face this temptation just about everywhere people live, work, and play. I came across the following note in the Wesley Study Bible about this passage. It reads: "Much of scripture addresses this problem, which appears in all times and places in an astonishing array of masquerades. Idolatry is perhaps the first-order sin; our deadly fundamental mistake as humans - honoring something other than God with our primary allegiance." Our "primary allegiance" can be given to the Church. To our family. To our success. To our comfort. And those things are much more sneaky than dark, outright sins like lust or murder. But they are just as twisted and unholy because they seek to exchange God for someone or something else. May God give us eyes to see our motives, desires, and plans as He sees them. And may he refit us to desire to know "nothing but Christ...and him cruficied" not only in theory but in the practice of our own lives. Grace & peace