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This morning I looked out the apartment window. To my right I saw the stone towers of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge beyond that. To my left I saw the Verizon building and city hall. The window faces south and I saw New York stretched out before me like a great collection of tools and material, each item with a purpose and each item, if used right, capable of creating something great. So many buildings with people in them.
I think that every person comes to this city to create something. Some build a world according to their own desires, something that’s here today, stands for a little while, and the blown away like cigarette dust. Some will build an empire that’s here for a flash, high and mighty and inspirational that ultimately means nothing. A few will build some small and beautiful thing that will last for ever because it’s built on love. But most people will put their aspirations aside, build nothing at all and trudge along with everyone else.
I can’t help worrying what I will make of it. I’ve only been here about five weeks now and I know this city is bigger than I ever thought. When I moved here a friend of mine called it a concrete cage. He meant it as an exaggeration to describe how depressing the city can be, but I mean it as a description of this great city’s personality. Everything in New York really is fifty feet taller whether you can see it or not.
I’ve called myself a city mouse before. I really do feel a bit overwhelmed like a little mouse in a great big canyon. It’s not a cage to confine but a peak to be ascended. I am afraid that I will fail and build a life that will ultimately pass away like everything else that people build, but I also know that’s not true. I know that I will fall sometimes, but God will never let me fall into darkness.
Like it or not, fair or not, he has his hand on me. And no matter what distraction my eyes follow, I look up to him, not as one person to another but as a son to a father. I guess I’m not the one to build with these tools. It’s God. He is the great creator after all.
My job is to build with the things I find here. When God built Adam, he built a leader to govern the things of the world and in turn build with them. I am not the King of this life. I never was, but I was meant to govern and build. I just need to keep perspective. The toolbox is a big one, but God is bigger.
I looked at my hands and realized I’m another tool in the box, a beloved one. It’s not me who’s building anything. It’s God all along.