All those walls

I've worked a bit of construction in my time.  During that time, I built my share of walls.  As part of the process of building a home, one of the first things done after the basement walls and floors are poured is to put the plates on top of the poured walls and then build the main floor of the structure.  Once all the floor joists are in place, the sheeting is put on and there is now a nice solid "platform" on which to construct the walls, which are laid out flat and made on the floor.  Once completed, it is raised into position and secured.  On to the next wall.  Before you know it, all of the exterior walls for that level are in place.  Then all the interior walls are made in place, so that when that level of the house is complete it is visually easy to see where each room is.  The same process takes place for any added levels to the house being built.  Walls separate one room from the other, just as the outer walls separate the outside from the inside.

I've also done something that I'd guess most of us have....whether we are builders or not.  In fact one doesn't have to know anything about construction to do what we have done.  We've built walls within us, and yes...around us.  These are walls that no one sees....though they can often sense that they are there.  For example:

• we build pretty strong walls around that place within us where we keep hidden all of our secrets about us...the ones we don't want anyone to know about
• we build walls around our emotions us guys do, because we don't want to appear "soft" or unmanly.  
• we build walls around certain aspects of our psyches, those we don't want to share with those closest to us...our spouses and children
• we build walls around the "real" us, that part of us that we don't want our church friends to see
• and more

It's a funny thing about our walls.  They are fairly easy for us to build. But, unlike those of a house, it gets a little dicey addressing our walls and removing them.  Oh, and one more thing....there is One in our lives who not only sees around our walls, but sees right through them.  Yep, that would be God.  You see, if we would just be fully transparent with God, include Him in all we do, commune with Him all we can, and keep in constant contact with Him, we wouldn't need all those walls.  We wouldn't need any.  Because with Him as our foundation, there is no need for walls at all.  Houses..yes!  Us.....no!