Recently, I decided to widen my driveway to allow our cars to sit side by side. Wanting a natural border for this project, I chose large stones from the creek behind our house. Some were rough and others were smooth. Some were pointed and others were more square. What I thought would be a quick and simple process turned out to be a rather tedious project.

While trying to place the rocks, my mind wandered back to a summer job working for a gifted stone mason named Chris Carroll. Chris masterfully fit together uniquely shaped rocks. While he worked, he would say to me, “I need one with a long point on the end,” or “I need one with a flat stubby edge.” Handing him a stone, he would say either “Good eye… good eye, my friend” or, “No, not quite.” Throughout the entire process, Chris maintained a wonderful sense of humor from which frequently erupted a hearty laugh.

This was a sharp contrast to my present frustration with this driveway project. The difference? To Chris, each rock was an opportunity to make something beautiful. To me, each rock was a burden to figure out what I should do with it.

After numerous attempts to place the stones, I questioned why I started this project. I even thought about putting all the stones back where I found them. Instead, I whispered a simple prayer, heaved a deep sigh, and surveyed the situation. In those quiet moments, I Peter 2:4-5 popped in my head, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

As I began again, I was struck with a painful awareness of a significant shortfall of grace with some “living stones” in my life. Mindful of that Scripture, God began to show me ways I was subtly rejecting “stones” that I didn’t know what to do with or just couldn’t see where they fit. As I knelt, God invited me to repent: To see each “living stone” with His eyes, beloved and chosen by the “Master Stone Mason.”

Since that experience, I am learning afresh that God does not carelessly toss rocks together in the local church. Instead, in a glorious display of divine craftsmanship, He carefully fits together uniquely formed and precious “living stones,” according to His will. Ephesians 2:19-22 tells us that we have been “fitted together,” built on the chief cornerstone of Jesus Christ, for a “dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

Perhaps some “living stones” have come to mind as you have read this. Would you ask God for fresh grace to see the local church with His eyes? Let’s embrace the process as He fits each uniquely gifted “living stone” together, building a “dwelling place of God in the Spirit” where we proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to a world that desperately needs the Good News!