It’s the ‘cement’

In Young People’s Conference, more years ago than I would ever admit, we sang a little song with big meaning:

Here are the lyrics as I remember them: “It’s love, it’s love, it’s love that makes the world go round.”

It’s true. It’s love that makes the world go round.

And it makes a lot of other things go round, like successful marriages, happy families—and you take it from there. Fred Craddock told a story years ago that I have never forgotten.

Let me share it with you.

One afternoon I was out walking and came upon a man at work.

He had a pile of bricks and was measuring each one—the length, the width, the depth.

He was throwing a bunch of good-looking bricks out. He explained, “I’ve got to get them all exactly the same.” I asked him, “Why?”

He said, “I am building a church, and I want it to stand.”

You see, some people think the way to have a church is to get people from the same economic and social background. Then they will all be together.

He started stacking those bricks; every one of them was exactly alike.

I went by the following afternoon, and they were all just a pile of bricks. They had fallen down.

Around the corner I saw a man with a pile of rocks. You’ve never seen such a mess in all your life—there were big ones, little ones, round ones, dark ones, all shapes and sizes. I asked, “What in the world are you doing?”

He said, “I am building a church.”

“Man,” I said, “You’re nuts! A man just around the corner had them all alike, and he couldn’t make them stand.”

He said, “This will stand.”

I stood doubting as he continued his work. He took something like a hoe and began to stir something that looked a lot like cement to me, but that’s not what he called it.

He put healthy doses of that between the stones.

I went back thirty-five years later. It was still standing strong.

You see it was that stuff that he put in between—stuff that looked like cement.

That’s not what he called it. I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count, as to what he called it. You are right.

That’s exactly what he called it.

Clyde Nichols is a retired minister, having served First Christian Church in Temple for 27 years as senior minister. He is the author of three books of devotionals and writes a religious column for several Texas newspapers.