Devotionals

Towers

by Jerry Ousley
11/04/22
For Sale

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

Towers

By Jerry D. Ousley

            I’ll never forget the day when two jet airliners plowed into the twin towers in New York City.  Later that day another was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC.  On September 11, 2001, 2996 people lost their lives in all the attacks that took place.  For Americans it became an infamous day in our history.

            I was fortunate.  I didn’t personally lose anyone in that attack.  I was sitting in my office at my place of employment, safely watching the horror unfold on my computer.  But I’ll never forget the sick feeling I had watching it as it happened.

            The twin towers were 110 stories each and one was 1368 feet tall and the other 1362 feet tall.  Yes, extremely large structures.  But those jet airliners brought both giant structures crashing to the ground.

            In Genesis 11 we read the story of the first tower ever built.  It happened years after the flood during which only Noah, his wife, his sons and his son’s wives were saved.  From them the world was repopulated.  I have no idea how many people were on the Earth at that time, but under the direction of a man named Nimrod, the people decided to build a tower “whose top may reach unto heaven.”  (Genesis 11:4).  It was to be a tower in defiance of God.  It was their attempt to escape any further plague God may decide to invoke on mankind (as if they could really defy God and stop Him).

            For those of you who know the story, you know what the outcome was.  Their tall tower was so insignificant to God that He actually said, “Let us go down.”  Their tower wasn’t tall enough to ever defy God!  When God came down, He miraculously caused them to start speaking different languages.  Of course, when suddenly they couldn’t understand each other, they couldn’t finish their tower. This was the beginning of all the languages of the Earth.  It was so confusing that the place was called Babel, and later became known as Babylon.  The name “Babel” means “confusion.”  It was certainly well named because it was a very confusing time.

            We still build towers.  They aren’t brick and mortar, physical structures but are made up of walls just the same.  We build towers that elate us.  We like to be seen.  We like to be known and we like to have things.  There’s really nothing wrong with any of that except that we can become lifted up in pride.  We like to be seen of men.  We like to think that we may have more favor with God than someone else. But all these things only give us a vain security.  In essence, even without realizing it, we are depending on ourselves rather than God.  We even take pride in the fact that we aren’t proud.

            Anytime we build towers of security, towers of wealth, towers of popularity and many other things that become towers in our lives, we are defying God.  We are saying, “I’ll make it on my own.  I’ll do it my way.  I’ll come up to God instead of depending on Him to come down to me.”

            But God does come down.  He always comes down to us, for regardless the height we may feel we have obtained, it will never, ever be high enough.  Our towers will never, ever be tall enough.  God will always come down.

            It doesn’t feel good when God shuts down our towers.  We may be embarrassed.  We may have our feelings hurt.  We may be just like Babel and be confused and angry.  But if we really want a relationship with God, He will give it to us, but it will require us to come down from our towers.  It will require us to forsake the empires we may be building.  We will have to give up the pride of doing it ourselves and give in to allow God to guide us.  And He will.  He will lead us.  Sometimes it may seem like it is the wrong way, but that’s only because we have tried to do it our way so long that God’s way doesn’t feel right.

            We want to go the way that may seem natural.  But God looks beyond what our eyes can see.  He not only looks out ahead but into the future.  He knows when something we may think is best will actually turn out to be worse.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel right to trust God, but in reality, it is always right.

            God may be speaking to you today, to forsake a tower that feels secure and safe.  Trust Him.  Leaving towers behind - Those towers of negative emotion, towers of pride and supposed strength, towers that we think will lead us to wealth but are really draining us dry, towers that make us feel holy when we really aren’t - Leaving those towers will not only make us better people, but when we trust God, we will actually find that our lives are richer, better, and happier in the end.