The Foundation is Strong, but What About the Rest of the Building?

I've recently acquired some new-found time in the wee hours of the morning after running a sometimes wet/sometimes dry toddler to the potty to ponder all those idiosyncrasies that make me who I am. I'm not gonna lie...it hasn't been all rainbows and sunshine! In fact, much to my surprise (as we all know how I am often my own biggest fan), I have yet to uncover a rainbow or make the sun rise even once! Instead, I've been faced with the reality that I am really as despicable and depraved as God claims that I am.

Take last night, for instance. I had just put Brody back to bed and snuggled under my warm covers to drift off to sleep when the roaring engine of our neighbor's motorcycle shatters the silence.
"It's 2:30 in the morning!! Where could he possibly be going?!?"
Then it was, "What pathetic mid-life crisis causes an old man to get a motorcycle ANYWAY?!?"
Which quickly morphed into, "They are ALWAYS so loud and obnoxious and they seem to conduct all their loud, obnoxious activities in their driveway for the rest of the neighborhood to enjoy!"
..."And who's the freakin' genius who designed these houses anyway? Who puts the neighbors garage on the same side as ALL our bedrooms? Any moron could figure out that it's smarter to put two garages side by side...especially when the houses are built so close together!"

From that wonderful little trip inside my head, you're probably thinking that I view my depravity as revolving around how poorly I think of other people. While it's true that I'm not the biggest fan of people in general, I was already well aware of this...and, frankly, I think it's possible to love people without being their biggest fan, so I've been working on accomplishing that balance for a while now. No...my problem was a much deeper, filthier one.

You see...I wasn't so upset about the dumb motorcycle keeping me awake...it was a matter of maybe 5 seconds before it was gone. I was really and truly angry at the man because I was just certain that his 5 seconds of insensitivity was going to wake up my sleeping 2 yr. old! Which brought me to the realization that the motorcycle wasn't the only thing that can raise my blood pressure in a matter of seconds...there's my husband's uncanny ability to make EVERY floorboard squeak in our house...or the fact that our mailman and the garbage truck INSIST on completing their respective responsibilities right in the middle of Brody's nap...and of course, there's the neighbors who love to lurk outside Brody's window and do heaven-knows-what as loud as they possibly can.

Have you figured out what my problem is yet? My problem is that no matter how long I spend in the Word reviewing the sovereignty of God, I still believe that I somehow control things. And what's worse...the things that I cannot physically control make me madder than spit because I believe that the one who does control them just isn't doing it right. So...I lay awake for an hour and half fuming over the fact that our harmless, gospel-music loving (and yes...sometimes noisy) neighbors drive a motorcycle probably to work the graveyard shift just to make ends meet...and I bombard my poor, defenseless husband with dirty looks every time he tries to walk in his own house at night...and I curse and beat my dog for courageously protecting our house from the nap time visits of our mailman...and all because I think that if I control those things my kid will sleep better and longer.

Then I read I Corinthians 3:12-15 and realize that while the foundation may be there and I may make it through the fire, I'm using an awful lot of straw, hay and wood. But I guess that's why God gives us noisy neighbors and babies who sometimes do wake up because of them. Without them, we wouldn't have the chance to tear down what we've built and try again with the right materials.