Don't knock 'em down

I love Mondays because Dan is home. Our Mondays are kind of like everyone else's Saturdays. But sometimes it is still hard to get good quality time together when we're at home. There are so many distractions, just chores and things we want to get done around the house. So last night I had the idea of going to the Children's Museum. Isaiah had a blast when we went in December with his preschool, so we went today.

So we spent a lot of time near the trains (big surprise...) and as I watched the kids playing with them, stacking blocks next to the tracks, I noticed something: it took them a lot longer to build a stack of blocks than it took to knock them down.

Then I started thinking that life is kind of like that. No matter what you're involved in, it takes a lot of time, energy, and thought to build up a program, small group, or whatever. In some cases, it only takes one negative comment, or one person quitting to just knock the wind out of everything you've built up.

I guess what we can take from that is a caution and an encouragement. Caution: be careful what you say. Don't criticize on a whim. To use a Mark Batterson-ism, criticize by creating. Encouragement: As difficult as it is, try not to let one incident drag you down. Instead, focus on the growth, the positive things going on in whatever area you've been working on.