Yesterday I spent a long hard day hanging drywall on a new house project for Habitat for Humanity. The Millcreek Valley affiliate is building a house in Lincoln Heights in about 14 days as part of the Build on Faith week. For this project H4H has encouraged several churches and businesses to help build and finance the house. When you hanging drywall six days after the ground breaking you are making good progress. I was asked if anyone from the Vineyard church would be interested in working on the project, so I asked the outreach coordinators and some friends. The coordinators apologized but they were unable to help. Several friends were interested but could not arrange their schedule. Two of my friends were able to make it, Jeff and Tom, and we joined a crew of about nine at the site. I think we had a good time and we completed several rooms. It was hard work and my muscles are sore today.

I have thought about the virtue of practical servanthood like building a house for some time. Acts of random kindness is a very effective tool for people to show God's love to others and to let God cultivate our heart. Building a house is more organized and takes longer to complete. There are many character pitfalls in building a house that are not present in a spontaneous act of kindness. God has presented us with a greater challenge. There are many opportunities to serve and grow closer to God. Each opportunity seems to work on developing a different part of our character. Hmm…