No sooner did I pen the words of my previous post was I given the ultimate test of building slow.

Our son, Jude, has taken to waking up every hour on the hour for no other reason than the fact he wants to be help. This has happened for two reasons:

1. A week or so ago, he was waking up at 5:00 and I wanted to be able to give Rachel some more time to sleep. So I took him out into the living room while he and I sat on the couch and Rachel got some rest. One thing lead to another and she was waking us up at 7:30 as we both were sleeping.
2. As I was playing father mom, I did my best to help him go to sleep and to take the naps he should. Little did I know that I would create a child who was becoming dependent on someone holding him in order to go to sleep.
   

Fast forward a week. Insert Daylight Savings Time. We now have a child who is waking up at 2:00, 3:00 and 5:00. 2:00 is normal (though we're trying to work on having him sleep through the night). 3:00 and 5:00 have been nice little additions he's given to us.

Here's how building slow comes into this. The easy fix is to get him out of his bed, hold him, rock him to sleep, call it a night and we're good to go. That's the easy fix. However, if we fast forward a couple of years, we're going to have a 4-year old who won't want to sleep because he has been put to bed and held in bed by mom and dad since he was born.

Solution? We have to build slow.

Parenting models aside, I hope you get what I'm saying here. I'm the last person who wants to let a baby "cry it out." I'm the last one who thinks, he can keep this going and it'll all be worth it. But as I was sitting in my bed (this morning), all I could think of is:

"The next years are going to be worth these hours, nights and mornings."

In fact, I can remember talking with Rachel and saying the exact same thing.

Now take this to leadership, and in my case ministry. Are we building with years in mind or are we building for the moment. It's easy to give what people want in the moment or what leadership demands in the moment. That's the easy part. But is that building you for where you want to be in years. The commitment to follow Christ is one that affects the rest of your life. It will have an impact for years to come. It is continual day in and day out.

Would your teaching style change if you were building for years?
Would what you talk about change if you were building for years?
Would the way you minister to students (or whoever it is for you) change if you were building for years?

What would change if you weren't just building for the moment, but you were building for years to come. I've found that I would do a lot differently. But I'd start, by Building Slow.