Unless the Lord Builds a House…

For years now, I’ve been praying to be more like Jesus. Little did I know that God wants to start with carpentry. Back to basics, right?

I moved my family out to the country a few years back because the house next to my wife’s parents came up for sale. Both of us wanted to live in the country, and this seemed like the absolutely perfect place.

But it’s a little snug. It has two bedrooms. I have four children. You do the math. To  say that we’re running all over one another would be a bit of an understatement.

God’s other plans.

The day we signed the papers to buy this place, we knew that we’d have to expand it at some point. I didn’t know when, but it was inevitable. Six people in two rooms, remember?

This spring I got Covid. It was a nothing case, just a little sniffle, but I tested positive. Unfortunately, it happened right as I was about to start my second session of the Alleluia School of Spiritual Direction. I was totally bummed out about it, but I decided to ask God what He wanted to do with the two weeks of stored up vacation that was suddenly available.

He said, “It’s time to do the addition.” I knew exactly what He meant.

Learning to be like Jesus.

I said that God wants me to be more like Jesus. That means that I’m not hiring a general contractor to build my addition. Who’s going to do it? This guy, right here, hiding on the other side of the keyboard.

You might wonder why I think that I’m qualified to do a job this big. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. I’m qualified because it’s my house. I think that’s about it.

Well, I built this sweet chicken coop and this awesome woodshed out of old pallets.

I also did a few minor renovations since we moved in. Like tear out the entire living room floor after putting my foot through the place where I wanted to put a Christmas tree. Or gutting the entire bathroom, floor included, replumbing the entire house (with a good friend’s help) and putting in a new tile floor (with another good friend’s help).

The Lord builds.

The scripture reads, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build.” Psalm 127:1. What on earth does that mean? I think it’s talking about the vanity of human effort apart from God’s participation.

Percy Bysse Shelley wrote a sonnet called Ozymandias that comes to mind:

I met a traveller from an antique land, 
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Now I’m not building a giant monument to my greatness. Given my accomplishments in life thus far, I would only deserve a pretty small monument. About the size of a Pokemon.

But that’s not the point. This house I’m trying to build is more than a shelter to keep my children from melting during the scorching Georgia summers. I want it to be a space where my wife and children will flourish. A greenhouse for the souls in my care. A place of protection and safety, of creativity and exploration.

And these qualities are not something that I can pay a general contractor to whip together. It’s something that will only happen if the Lord builds it.

One step forward.

Today, I submitted the plans at the top of this post to the McDuffie County Planning department. I’m adding two kid’s bedrooms, a kid’s bathroom, and a master bedroom with its own bathroom and walk in closet. The addition will be about 900 square feet, nearly doubling the size of our house. Needless to say, Mary and I are more than a little excited.

Over the next year or so (hopefully not much more than that), I’m going to chronicle this journey of building a massive new addition with my bare hands. I have no idea what’s going to happen, or how this is all going to unfold, but I do know that I’m going to be quite different at the end of it. How could I not be after working with the Divine Carpenter?

Please keep me in your prayers as I start building the House of Krupa. God uses projects like this to purify my soul and teach me new things about myself. I’ll need all the grace I can get to bring this project to completion.

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If you want to read more of my adventures building the House of Krupa, check out the archive!

To read more about my conversion, check out Demoniac, now available on Amazon.