To Build or Not to Build — Jenny Daniel

Well, it's a privilege to be here, but it's also hard for me to stay on this side. I prefer sitting in a seat, as usual, and I don't get used to it yet. I just want to say before I start, we're so grateful for the wonderful way our room has been made, so beautiful and welcoming.

All the sweets and chocolates and biscuits and flowers and quilts and pillows and everything is really so beautiful and we're very grateful. Before I start, let us pray. Lord, I ask you to come and speak to each one of us, Lord.

May we hear thy voice encouraging us to become the woman that thou wouldst have us to be. We want to hear thy voice, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, I didn't know I was going to speak this morning, and when I was told, I thought, what am I going to share with you?

I first thought I might share Christmas poems because we're close to Christmas, but then I felt the Lord clearly leading me to speak to you about the choice that each of us face as women, and that choice comes to us in Proverbs 14, verse 1.

Building or Breaking Down the Home

Every wise woman buildeth her home, but the foolish plucketh it down, buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down. And to each of us, no matter how small or how big we are, how old we are, there is a choice to build or not to build.

Now, I won't say, like Shakespeare, to be or not to be, that is the question. The question that comes to us as women is, are we going to be builders, or are we going to be breakers down? And you know, I was in Ohio recently, and the family that we were with were builders, and their brothers were builders, so it was a whole community of builders.

And it was so interesting for me to see how the littlest child was involved in the building. The Father said, whoever can be out of nappies can help with the process. And we passed the house, and we stopped there, and there was the little boy of about two, a little girl of about seven, helping with the building, with the gadgets and everything around their waist, feeling so proud that they were part of the building process.

It doesn't matter how small we are, or how old we are, each one of us can be builders in the home, the surrounding that God places us. Now, the smallest child here would tell me that you've got to lay something before you build a house.

Is that not correct? The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the wise woman also has to build her house upon the rock. It's no use us thinking, oh, I want to be a builder for the Lord, I want to build up other people's lives, if our life isn't on the rock.

And that rock is the Lord Jesus Christ. He that has the Son has life, he that has not the Son of God has not life. If we one day want to face God, and face the judgment, peace of God, we will have to be sure that our house is on the rock, and only then can we be true builders.

Four Homes That Built Faith

Now, I'm going to take you on a lightning visit to four different homes that influenced my life, people who were builders. Now, recently at home I read a book, it's called The Lives of Noble Women by Davenport.

And it was so amazing to read of women who were willing to die for the sake of their obedience to God. I mean, the one lady was put on a rack and pulled apart, and they had to carry her in a chair to the stake for her to be burnt over there.

I'm not going to speak about those great, great women, I'm going to speak about ordinary women like you and I, who in the ordinary circumstances, in difficult circumstances, were able to be builders. Now, the first home I'm going to take you to is the home of my mother.

A Mother Who Built Her Home Through Submission and Faith

My mother was saved as a teenager. My father saw her at the age of 17 riding on a horse, and he said, that is the girl I'm going to marry. And he married her at 25. She wasn't sure when he approached her if he really knew the Lord.

And so she was weary of this person so keen to marry her. But when she found out that he was truly a Christian, when the family felt that this was God's will, they got married at the age of 25. The first thing my mother did when she was married was she turned to my father and she said to him, I have been to Christian camp.

I've had a lot of input. You haven't. But I want you to be the spiritual leader in our home. I want you to be the priest of the home for our children. I truly believe that if my mother had not said that to my father at the beginning of her marriage, he wouldn't have become the man of God he is today.

He preaches all over South Africa. He has led thousands of souls to the Lord. He doesn't pass anybody by without witnessing to them. Many people turn to him for counsel and help. And I think he grew the way he did because my mother was willing to say, I'm not going to take the leadership in the home.

I know much more than you do. But she was able to stand back and allow him to become the man that God wanted him to be. Now my mother also loved creating beautiful things. But when they were married, they didn't have much money.

You farm and then some calamity, the river comes down in flood and takes everything or the hail comes. Many things happened in our lives as young children that sort of crushed plans. And so my mother had to make a beautiful home out of the things that were available to her.

I remember as a child, we had beautiful little bedside cabinets next to our bed. Well, they were made out of wooden paraffin boxes. The fridges were used paraffin and this paraffin came in these wooden crates.

And my mother would take the crates and cover it with material and foam, put little frills around, put a little shelf in and we had beautiful bedside cabinets. I remember for my sister, when she was a baby, she made a cupboard to hang all the little dresses and nappies and everything out of tomato boxes.

And it looked beautiful. Often my mother used to come into the house with a chair or a bench that somebody had thrown out and we would think, oh no, what can you do with it? It looks awful. And she would get somebody to make another leg for the chair, put it back onto the bench, cover it.

And in our home, there are two of those pieces that people admire. But it was the chair without one leg and the bench without a back that she made beautiful. And you know what? Because my mother made our house beautiful, whether it was just a bowl of flowers in the house, whether it was something that she sewed or a chair that she fixed up, we knew that my mother loved home and she loved being with us.

And it did something for us as children. We were sure of her love because of the time she spent with the little that she had in hand to make our home beautiful. Another thing my mother did for us as a builder was that she read to us.

She was very busy. She was a farmer's wife. She sometimes even had to help out in the village school with teaching. And yet she found time to read to us. I remember books like Little Dot, Whiter Than Snow, Little King Davy.

I remember her telling us about the French Revolution and reading to us about the French Revolution, the horrors, and making it so alive to us as children that we were dreading that another revolution would come.

She also read to us from the Bible any time that she had and made the Bible real to us as children. And I thank her for that. I love books today because of her love for books and the love she created in us to read.

Another thing about my mother is that she believed that God answered prayers. And even as children, we were conscious that my mother believed that if she asked God for something, He would answer. And she came to Him with the little things and the big things.

When she baked the cake, she opened the oven door and we knew. She said, Lord, please bless this cake baking in the oven. When we were going to leave the farm, many a time when things went wrong, my mother went to the same childlike faith and said, Lord, please help.

We need You to intervene. And she really believed that God answered her prayers. And she taught us to believe in a God that answers prayers because of her belief. Today, Roy, when he has a special thing that he wants to pray for, he said, I must phone Granny and ask her to pray.

She's still the prayer warrior that she was long ago. And we thank God for that. My mother never read the Bible in the mornings without believing that God had a special message for her. As a little girl, I had a vivid imagination.

And I used to think that the Bible changed every time my mother read it. I actually thought that Psalm 23 would just be different for my mother because God had a special message for her. Her name might even be there.

Why did I think that as a child? I think it was because it was so real to us that God spoke to us and to her. And each day she would say, you know, this is what God said to me today. Take hope. Go on.

Don't fret. God will answer our prayers. She was excited about what God said to her. Now, in later years, recently, about three years ago, the Lord allowed my mother to have cancer in the spine. And suddenly, this active mother involved with us, even though we were far away, became bedridden, so much so that she could hardly move any part of her body.

And she was in hospital, and they thought she'd never walk again. It was wonderful in that hospital room to see how my mother became a builder to that little environment that she had. Nurses came to her room and were built up in the Lord.

She didn't lose her joy in the Lord. Even in that terrible state of, you know, not knowing if she'd ever walk again, she was able to build and to be a light and shine for the Lord. Well, she believed the Lord said she would walk again.

And the doctor said to her, Mrs. LaRue, you'll never walk again. And I went to the doctor, and I said, why do you say that? He said, well, we don't know if the sinews in her spine are permanently damaged.

And anyway, she's so old. You know, she was in her 70s, and she's older in her 70s. And they said, he said, it's impossible for her to walk again. But she believed God would help her to walk again. And she not only walks, but she does daring things like wanting to climb up a ladder to fix a light bulb.

So God has done a miracle in her life. But I think it was because of her faith that what God said, he would do. When I was a child, I wrote, my mother is like a sweet country home, next to a wood of experience to roam, two windows to let the love shine through, a door that speaks of laughter to, a kitchen to help us in every need, equip us in life for every deed, a bedroom that speaks of quiet prayer, all peace and quiet with God in there, a living room, that's the important part, that's my dear mother's precious heart.

A Grandmother Who Found God After Loss

And I thank God that I had a mother who was a builder. I'm going to take you to another home now, and that's the home of my grandmother. Well, she got married as an unsaved, fairly religious person, hoping as any young mother would that her life would have the normal happiness that one hopes for and children.

Well, shortly after her marriage, two things happened that jolted her security. The first thing that happened to my grandmother is she suddenly began to realize that she could not be secure in my grandfather's love, that she did not know that he would remain faithful to her.

And that was a tremendous shock for her to go through as a young wife. And then another thing happened. Their home was a fair distance from this Gamtjes River that our farms were on, and there was much rain higher up in the country, and suddenly this river came down, and it came down with such force that it changed its course, and it bore right down upon the home that my grandmother was living in as a young wife with two little children.

They didn't realize the danger. They were in until the doors suddenly shut open, and it was only at that stage about an inch of water, but the force was so great that the door was flung open by the water alone.

Well, she realized she had to flee for her life, so she grabbed the children. There was another lady there. She grabbed the big black pot to make tea, and they ran and scrambled up the mountain next to the river that was raging and roaring at that stage, and they sat in a cleft in the rock.

My grandmother said she looked down, and she saw everything she owned being swept away by the river, her photographs, the furniture that she'd inherited from her mother's mother's mother. You know, it's a rather sentimental family, and everything that she treasured and that was precious to her was slung away by the river.

My mother was a little girl of three at that time, and she said she can still feel the agony, she thought, as a little girl of three lying in the cleft underneath this enormous rock, and she was so scared at the age of three that this rock would crush her head.

So there they stayed for a few days in the cleft in the rock and just watched as everything disappeared. My grandmother said that after that, there was such an emptiness in her heart. She couldn't have the trust of her husband fully, and she had nothing.

They had to live in a shed. They put curtains as room dividers, and she said she hungered and hungered after something. There must be more in life than what she had. And then a visiting evangelist came by, and he preached on they that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be full.

And my grandmother said, that's it. It's what I need. That will be the answer to the cry and the emptiness of my heart. And so she accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as her Saviour. Well, as soon as she was saved, she of course wanted her husband to get saved, and she thought the Lord would answer her prayers immediately.

And so she went to him, and she told him what had happened in her life. But you know, it took 40 years of praying, 40 years of faithfulness, before God answered her prayer for my grandmother. And her life became a life with one purpose.

Everything was around that purpose, to get her husband saved. Forty years of praying. Well, my grandmother's home, despite the fact that her husband was unsaved, was a wonderful home for us as children.

She was a provider. We used to say, to Granny's house we grow, where we shall sutter grow. She was a wonderful cook. And we often used to come in her home, and there she used to provide this long table, and I used to sit at the bottom of the table and think, oh, I hope there's enough food for me, because it smells so nice.

And she always had enough for anybody. She was a provider. She was also somebody whose home was open to others in need. Her home was open to missionaries. My grandfather didn't want to go to meetings, but the meetings came to him.

And the missionaries were hardly in the home before she said to them, share with me the burden for my husband that he would get saved. And so there were many, many people praying with her for my grandfather.

On Sundays, for many years, my grandmother used to cook a delicious meal. On Sundays you'd see lamb and roast potatoes and vegetables, a big meal. She used to cook the meal, wait for grace, and then go to her room, miss the whole meal, and pray for his salvation for many, many years.

It was something that she said to God, I'm going to cook the Sunday meal. I'm going to miss the Sunday meal. I'm going to set it aside to pray and call on me for my husband's salvation. I don't know what my grandfather felt.

He's eating this nice meal made by his wife, and he knows she's there in the room on her knees calling on God for his salvation. I'm sure it spoke to him. On Friday evening, despite the fact that it was a home with an unsaved husband, we used to have times of singing hymns.

Now my grandmother's fingers were very gnarled by arthritis and rheumatism. They were bent. And yet she had a beautiful touch on the piano, and we used to sing and pray in her home on Friday evenings.

Even as a small child, I can remember the presence of God in that home on Friday evenings. My grandfather even asked for his favorite hymn. I'm sure those Friday evenings were a drawcard for him to God.

My grandmother was looked up to in the community. I remember they had a WAA meeting, which is the Women's Agricultural Association meeting. And of all the women in the valley, she was chosen to give a speech.

Now my mother said she's ashamed of it now, but she thought, oh no, I'm sure Granny's going to bring a test on me. And you just don't do that at an agricultural meeting. Well, my grandmother spoke about everything that happened in the valley, the farming, the change from certain crops to other crops.

And then she spoke about the flood, and sure enough, she brought her test on me. And many a person came afterwards to thank her for that testimony. And my mother said it was wrong that she had feared.

My granny was a force for God, even though her husband was unsaved. And I thank God that she was a builder. Near the end of the 40 years of praying, she said to my mother and her sister, she said, you know, I think, is God going to answer my prayers?

Even this woman of faith started to lose a bit of faith. And my mother and her sister said, oh no, mommy, you're not giving up now. You've prayed for so long, you're not giving up now. And it wasn't soon afterwards when my grandfather got saved, when God answered her prayers.

And he was so changed by God that kids who only met him after he got saved cannot believe the story of him before his salvation. So that's what God did. And they had about 11 years of unity and joy as they served God together.

Building Through Betrayal and Loss

And that was wonderful. And I thank God that she didn't stop being a builder because her circumstances were against her, but that she was willing to build despite her circumstances. Well, the next lady I'm going to let you visit had tragedy and triumph written across her life.

She was a young missionary and she was a very petite, tiny, beautiful little missionary. She was beautiful outwardly and she was beautiful inwardly. So much so that the leaders of the mission just delighted in her.

And therefore, because they delighted in her, they said, well, you know, we must be very careful who she chooses as her husband. I don't think we must allow her to seek the Lord for a husband. We must choose for her.

And so they began looking around who they thought would be an appropriate husband for her. Now, even as Christians, we can only see the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. And they looked and they only saw that which was on the outward.

And they thought, well, this tall African young man is the ideal husband for her. And so they persuaded her. She wasn't interested in marriage, but under their persuasion and influence, she eventually fell in love with this man and felt it was the Lord's will and they got married.

It wasn't long after the marriage that this man walked out on that little lady into a life of gross sin. He went into sin. He didn't only desert her, but he went into sin. And others knew what he was involved in.

There she was, abandoned, deserted, betrayed. She went to another missionary family that were as parents to her. The daughter was as a friend to her. And there she spent her days calling on God for him, please, to come back, for him to repent.

Do anything, Lord, to bring him back. But the Lord did not answer that prayer. And not long afterwards, this husband died in his sin. So there she was. She'd been married. It's been tragedy. She was alone.

And in a sense, on a human level, such a person should have become bitter, bitter with the people who forced her, as it were, into this union, angry at God for allowing it to come to pass. Surely she could not be a builder.

And yet this little lady went back and lived in a bachelor flat. I knew her later in her life. And she was a light. She was a joy. She was a blessing. She was an inspiration. She was an encouragement to so many.

You know, she was beautiful. Despite everything that she had gone through, I looked at her as a young Christian. And as I saw her, I could just see the Lord shining through her life. She did not have bitterness, angriness, moaning.

Instead, she had joy in her trust that God doeth all things well and that she must lean on him. I can still see her sitting on the edge of a chair. She had white hair, lots of white hair. She had black hair when she was married.

She had thick white hair, loosely tied up, dainty, small, sitting on the edge of a chair, pouring tea out of a china teapot. She loved beautiful things, even though she had such a small place. As I looked at her as a young Christian, I thought, Well, oh Lord, if one day I could just be a little bit like her.

So she did not have children. She never had children anymore, but she was able to build up not only my life, but many other people's lives. She was a builder in the little house circle that God had placed her.

A Missionary Builder in a Tiny Room

The last home I'm going to take you to quickly is a home of a lady that never married. She was also a missionary, and her home was ten foot by ten foot. It was just a room. Now, she had been in mission work, and God had greatly used her.

I remember many stories that she told us. The one story she told us was that she had been to Mozambique, and they had held services for children in Mozambique on the seashore. She said after they had finished the services for the children, they went back into South Africa, and they ended up at a little town.

It's called a railroad siding. I don't know if you call it the same. It's a few houses, ten houses, and it was on the edge of a mountain. They did visitation over there, so she visited from house to house.

After she'd visited each one, she asked them, Is there anybody else living in this area? Is this everybody? We've done everybody. We've challenged everybody about to stand with the Lord. They said, No, there are two houses on top of the mountain.

But it's no use. You can't get there. You have to go halfway up by donkey, and you've got to walk the rest. Then there are two people who want to be so isolated that they've made their houses on top of this mountain.

She said, No, she won't have finished the time if she hadn't visited these two houses. She felt God leading her. So they went on the donkey halfway up. They walked the rest of the way up. When they arrived on the top of the mountain, the people said, Oh, Miss Glass, come in.

We've been waiting for you. She said, What's going on? They said, We were in Mozambique. We heard you speak to the children at the beach services. We said, We have been praying ever since then that God would send this lady to tell us how we can get saved.

So she'd had an active, wonderful life with wonderful stories of how God used her. But suddenly she was retired in inverted commas, and she was in a room ten foot by ten foot. It didn't even have a bathroom or a toilet.

She had to go down the road for that. She had a bed, a chair, a bookshelf, and behind it was a little sink and a two-plate stove. But from that little room, she cooked for other people, for those in need.

She made it a little room where people came for prayer. She encouraged people. She tried to reach out to people who were unsaved. I remember just knocking on her door one day, and there she was in prayer with a Jewish lady.

She was a builder for the Lord in a little room. She didn't have children either. She didn't have a husband, and yet she was a true builder. My mother was a wonderful mother, but she didn't teach me how to cook.

Now, Miss Glass knew how to cook, and she had lots of advice to give me. I remember baking cookies. Instead of just making a little batch, I thought I'd make a thousand cookies. So I mixed it all, and then of course I took the salt instead of the sugar.

To taste it was just horrific, the dough. I went to her and I said, what can I do with this? She said, well, you can use it for thickening in gravy. I thought, oh no, for ten years I've got to look at this failure.

But she always had a lot of advice. She also used to say, Jeannie, if you're a missionary, you must be able to make a meal out of anything. Whatever you've got in the house is what God gives you, and if people are right, you must be able to do a meal out of what you have.

Well, that was quite daunting for me. She could use cakes out of her head and whatever. One day I was in this little flat that we lived in, and I looked in my cupboard, and I had two onions. I looked in the fridge, and I had a block of cheese.

And that was all, and Keith was coming home for supper, and he's hungry when he gets home after all his visiting. And I said, what am I going to do? What would Miss Glass do? So I said, oh well, Miss Glass would boil the onions.

So I boiled the onions. And I said, well, what would Miss Glass do next? I said, oh well, all right. She would take the insides of the onions out, and she would chop them up. She would grate the cheese, and she would put it back in the onions, and they looked quite good, these onions with cheese centers.

And I put them back in the oven, and I felt very proud of myself. And when Keith came home, he said, this smells good. Well, he'd hardly been home a few minutes when somebody knocked on the door, and it was another missionary lady.

And Keith said, oh, come in, come in. We're just going to have supper. I'm sure you don't feel like cooking. Come in and have a meal with us. And I thought, oh dear, what do I do with two onions? So I chopped them up.

So Miss Glass was a wonderful help, and she had advice to give everybody. And she didn't allow a little room, just a 10-by -10-foot room, to inhibit her from being a builder for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Dangers of Becoming a Breaker Down

Sadly, the verse doesn't say I talk only about building. It also talks about breaking down. And in Christian work, one comes across many people who are not builders, but who are breakers down. Now, many people have shared over the years, and sadly there have been some that have said, my home is a prison to me.

I hate my home. I feel like a prisoner in my home. If I didn't have to answer the needs of my children, the demands of my husband, I would have been a famous woman. I could have been a writer. I could have been a journalist.

I could have been an explorer. The one lady even put a Christian connotation on it, and she said, you know, I could have been a Wycliffe Bible translator if I didn't have all my children and my husband.

Home is a prison, and they feel as if the home is just closing in upon them, and they want to get out, be free. And sadly, the husband and the children start feeling as if they are the jailers of that home.

It's a prison. Young people have shared with me, and older sometimes, that home is just like a factory to them. You know, you drag your bodies from morning to night. It's one work after the other. It's the washing, it's the sweeping, it's the cleaning, and nobody appreciates what I do, they say.

You know, it's just, I'm a slave. I'm just dragging myself on, and even when I get married, perhaps that's all that's waiting for me, just one chore after the other. And that's very sad, when home is not a home, but it just becomes a factory of producing meals, getting the clothes, meeting the needs of others, and just not being recognized and appreciated.

There's another lady who shared with me that her home is to her just a place of depression. When she's away from home, she's happy, but when she gets closer to home, she just becomes depressed. When they drive in the car and they get closer to the home, she said, we start arguing in the car.

I don't know what it is. She said, I just am depressed. I'm not happy to be at home, to be in the home. I want to be out working, meeting with people. I'm just depressed in the home. Somebody else shared that her home is a place of escape, escape from that which she should be doing.

They can't wait to close the door. Nobody can see what they're doing. Then they can read and just lie down all the time and not do the things that are essential in the home. And so they become a burden to their family and to their husband and to their children or to their sisters and brothers because home is just an escape from that which they should be doing.

Building Despite Difficult Circumstances

Perhaps you may say, it's not easy to be a builder because my circumstances are not ideal. Well, my grandmother's circumstances were not ideal either. She had an unsaved husband, an unfaithful husband, and yet that didn't stop her being a builder.

That little lady who could have been so bitter and angry, she said, no, I'm not going to let those things that happen crush my life. I'm going to be the builder that God wants me to be in the rest of my life.

And that little missionary in a one room didn't allow that room to close in and become like a little prison to her when she'd been out in the field all the time reaching people in town. She made that little room a little building place for God.

I wrote a little poem here the other day. It says, a prisoner within the home who hates each hour therein, a slave who drags her body through demands both great and mean. Depressive, blocking out the sun, or lazy, selfish, blind to all God could accomplish if you, your mission, find.

Yes, reach the lives you're given. Oh, build foundations true so that they're rising upward. Yes, heavenward through you. Now, it's no use speaking about building if we don't know how to build. Isn't that correct?

Offering the Body as a Living Sacrifice

We all need to know how to build. I'd love to build onto a house, but I don't know how. And so we also need to know how to build, how to be the builder God wants us to be. Now, if we have already built our life on the rock, if we've got the right foundation, I feel that the most crucial requirement for me and for you to be the builder that you have to be, whether you be small or old, is to give your bodies as a living sacrifice to God.

If we give our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, that body will never feel like a robot. That body will never feel like a slave, because whatever we're doing with this body, it is God's. And even sweeping or ironing or whatever, cooking will be done for Him, because our body is God's.

And that's what God asks of us. And that changes the whole outlook that we have about the home. Now, if I ask a little girl, what would it take of me to give my body? Is it just part of me? Just my mind?

Just my mouth? Or is it every part of me? There was a little girl in a town in South Africa who, years ago, slipped into a church service. She wasn't used to going to church. She was barefoot. She had a little dress on that was patched, was clean.

And she slipped in and sat in the church service. And she was awed by the graceness of the church building and by the word of the minister. And then suddenly, it was collection time. And in our country, when they have, I don't know if you call it the offering, they call it collection in Ireland, they bring this big sort of wooden plate with a velvet inside, and it passes on from one to another.

And she saw people throwing in money, and she thought, oh, what am I going to do? And so the plate came closer and closer to her. And then that little girl took the plate from the deacon, and she put it in the aisle, and she stood in the plate.

And she just stood like that. She was saying to God, I've got money to give to you, but I give you every bit of me. And that's what God asks of us. He asks for every bit of us. Because if we are totally God, everything we do will be for God.

I've written another one here for you. We sometimes think the sacrifice of many a mundane thing will satisfy a jealous God, a partial offering. Yet Jesus came to give His all, His life on Calvary. How can I come and say to God, take only part of me?

My all was in His loving hand, to do with what He will. For then He can His purposes, through me, His child, fulfill. We have to give every part of us. And I always think of Ruth and Orpah. The difference between Ruth and Orpah was just that total dedication.

Orpah also left her people part of the way with Naomi. She also went part of the way. But when it came to going all the way, it was because Ruth was dedicated, because in her heart she had said, where thou goest, I will go.

Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Whatever comes, I'm part of it with you. That's where the change came and where Orpah went back. And so God asked of us that same dedication. He asked for every bit of us.

I say, whatever God asks of me, His will will become my will. His wishes will become my wishes. His path, even though it's a hard path, will become my path. My home will be His home. Now Paul described it in these words.