The Secret To Meaningful Change - Building More Sandcastles

When I was little, I loved building things.

Legos, forts, sandcastles - you name it.

Building sand castles is one of the first things I remember doing as a kid at the beach.

I loved trying to get them as high as I possibly could, putting a protective wall and moat around them, and then creating a bridge to connect to other sand castles - of course.

And after a hard day’s work in the hot sun, it felt good to step back and look at what I had accomplished.

It feels good when you build something.

But what you learn over the years about sand castles is that, as much as you put up walls and try to protect them, they can easily be torn down.

The tide rolls in..

A storm comes..

Or that one kid walks by.. looks at it.. thinks for a second.. and then chooses to walk ON it instead of AROUND it.

(Jerk..)

At first, you’re a little sad.

Why would they treat something I love this way? There is so much beach to walk around it..

And then it quickly turns into anger.

They immediately became the bad guy. The enemy.

I want revenge.

I play the long game.

I’m going to sit and wait for THEM to build something, so I can tear down THEIR sand castle.

Haha!

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

But at some point, reality sets in.. The sun starts to go down.. The anger subsides.

And in those moments, we step back and realize that maybe the fun part is actually in the BUILDING. 

It's the process.. the hard work.. the discovery..

We start to see that maybe we can actually learn from today, rebuild tomorrow, and make it even better than before.

We were created to build. 

A lot of us are older now and we might not be building as many sand castles, but we are building houses, companies, capital, influence, followers..

This idea of building never stops.

But unfortunately, what I've realized over the past few months is that we, as people, have done a poor job of building something important.

We’ve quit building friendships. 

At some point along the way, it must have stopped feeling worth it.

To start one risks getting torn down.

Adding protection became too much work.

There’s no use for bridges.

We lost the desire to keep building.

And I admit, it's gotten harder as we've gotten older.

Think about what it was like building friendships as a kid.

(Seriously.. Pause and try to remember the time you made your first friend.)

It was so easy. Wasn't it?

It was like, “Hey, do you want to come sit next to me while we... color?", or "Do you want to play a game?", or "Hey, I’m going to get a snack, want to come?”

And just like that, you had a friend.

But around the time we reach middle school, things change. 

We start noticing new things that we didn't before. We start judging people based off what they are wearing or the way they look. We start picking and choosing.

Friendship becomes a lot more selective.

And for some reason, slowly but surely, the cool thing becomes tearing people down rather than building people up.

We make fun of people. We talk behind their backs. (Especially toward those who are different than us).

And we never really return back to the way it once was.

It stays this way through adulthood.

AND THEN, as if it wasn’t hard enough already, we were introduced to an entirely new world.

Technology started moving at a rapid pace.. The internet took off.. Facebook was invented..The iPhone was created..

All in a matter of years.

And it’s like they all joined forces in order to muddy the waters of friendship.

The tide rolled in.

The perfect storm came through.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get more complicated, Facebook gave us hundreds and thousands of so called “friends”.

We all have friends!

Now we could all point to this huge list of “friends”.

And it became a competition to see who had the MOST friends.

But somewhere along the way, we traded “friends” for followers..

I’m not sure when..

But we stopped having fun building new sand castles and became the kid following behind and tearing them down.

And now we've completely lost our definition of "friend". 

We definitely don’t treat all those people on Facebook like friends.

Sure you throw a like every once in a while, but when's the last time you reached out to them to hang out? To grab coffee? To go see a movie?

How about all those "friends" on Instagram? Wait... those aren't friends. They're just followers.

Maybe Twitter?

No, Twitter is a war zone.

Caution: Enter at your own risk.

It’s FULL of bullies wrecking sand castles and tearing down bridges.

At some point all of our so called "friends" just became names on a screen and we quit treating the names like real friends or real people..

When did this trade happen? When did we trade followers for friends? When did we replace building up with tearing down?

Because these were all very bad trades and I would like a do over. 

This isn't fun anymore.

Being a “friend” shouldn’t mean that we simply “like” and "dislike".  

It's more than that.

Friendship is a relationship. 

A friend is one who sticks closer than a brother (Prov 18:24).

• Someone to lean on and who is there for us no matter what mistakes we make.

A friend is someone who loves at all times (Prov 17:17).

• Through the good and the bad. You can have honest conversations with them and they don't judge or condemn you.

A friend is pleasant and kind (Prov 27:9).

• They're nice to each other. How hard is that?

Friendship is iron sharpening iron (Prov 27:17).

• Two people offering advice and challenging one another! Helping us see things in a new way. 

We NEED friendships. 

Yes, they may not be easy to build.

Yes, they can be hard to protect.

Yes, building bridges can seem too difficult at times.

But when it’s all said and done, you look back and feel good about what you’ve accomplished.

And it’s worth it.

Our friends make us better.

We listen to our friends because a relationship has been built.

They’ve put in the work and stuck up for you.

We know our friends want what’s best for us so we are willing to listen and change. 

We trust them. 

Relationship or Friendship ALWAYS precedes responsibility. 

For us to actually listen, feel responsible, and desire meaningful change, we need to be called out by a friend.

Not a follower.. Not a name on a screen.. Not a bully.

This doesn’t work.

We've got to start building friendships again.

We've got to protect our friendships.

We've got to build bridges to new friendships.

• Across political lines 

• Across generations

• Across cultures

Go back to elementary school days and invite people to do something with you, like coloring..

Could be a little weird.. but who cares?

You’re building.

Maybe instead of yelling your disdain into the twitter-verse, open a real dialogue with someone. Direct message them instead of commenting. Text or call them.

Sure, not everyone will see it.

Sure you may not grow your following or get hearts next to your comment, but you’ll build a bridge.

Maybe ask someone to go grab lunch or coffee. 

Put a real face with the name. 

OR..

Bear with me here..

Maybe..

Just. Don’t. Be. Mean.

That appears to be a lot harder than it used to be.

Encourage someone today.

Build up instead of tearing down.

Stick up for someone and protect a friendship.

Friendships are the key to creating meaningful change.

We need to build more sand castles.

And with a little more building, a little more protecting, and a few more bridges, we might start to get somewhere.

We will get a whole lot closer to BEING AT EASE.