A Shoe? Really?

A Shoe? Really?

Bible Blast: Read Psalm 127:1-2

Unless the LORD builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Psalm 127:1

In 1948 an über-rich shoe-business dude name Mahlon Haines built a shoe-shaped house in York County, Pennsylvania. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room! It’s forty-eight feet long and twenty-five feet high. Mr. Haines (also known as “The Colonel”) built the shoe as a guesthouse. He invited an elderly couple to stay in his big shoe for a weekend, and he pampered them with a maid, a cook, a chauffeur, and a car. He also gave the couple brand-new clothes from local stores.

Later the shoe was turned into an ice cream shop, and now it’s a museum displaying interesting things from the Colonel’s life. Maybe you can check it out on a family road trip someday. It’s called the Haines Shoe House.

Building any kind of thing in life—shoe shaped or otherwise—is pointless if you do it without the Lord. In fact, doing anything without God is useless or wasted, like our focus verse Psalm 127:1 says.

God builds things for eternal purposes. He doesn’t do something just because he “feels like it” or gets bored or has some extra cash lying around. Everything God does has great purpose to it, and he wants us to live our lives with that same sense of purpose.

You may not build buildings yet, but you build relationships, dreams, goals, projects, and ideas. God wants to be the One who really builds those things. If you let him, the things you create will have deeper meaning to them.

Letting the Lord “build your house” means you need to ask constantly for his will to be done in everything you decide to do in life. Ask him to guide you and show you what to do and how to do it. He will hear your prayers and build something life changing with you.

So if your dream is to live in a shoe, make sure you ask God about that. He may have a different plan—like, maybe he wants you to live in a hat!

Girl Gab: Look at photos of the Haines Shoe House online or in a book at the library. If you could make your house into any shape, what would it be? What shape would your mom choose? Commit all your “building plans” for today to the Lord.