There is a certain kind of list that always draws a crowd, and this week the internet was busy passing one around again: the world's tallest buildings. People love to line them up, tallest to shortest, and marvel at how high we can climb. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai still tops the chart, and there are newer towers reaching to break records that seemed impossible only a generation ago. There is something in us that wants to look up and say, look what we made.
I understand the pull. I have stood at the base of a tall building and felt my neck crane back and my breath catch a little. It is a wonder. Human beings were made with the capacity to imagine, design, and build, and that capacity is a gift from the God who Himself is a Maker. When engineers pour a foundation deep into the earth and raise steel toward the clouds, they are, whether they know it or not, echoing something of their Creator.
An Old Story About High Places
But the Bible tells an old story about a tall building too, and it is worth remembering. In Genesis, the people of the earth gathered on a plain and said to one another, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth" (Genesis 11:4).
Notice the reason they gave. It was not shelter. It was not need. It was to make a name for ourselves. The tower of Babel was not condemned because it was tall. It was a tower built to reach heaven on human terms, to prop up human pride, to gather glory that belonged to God alone. The height was never really about the height. It was about the heart.
That is the quiet warning tucked into these lists we love to admire. The building is not the danger. The impulse to say look what I made, look how high I climbed, look how big my name has become — that is where the soul gets into trouble. Every one of us feels it in some form. It may not be a skyscraper. It may be a resume, a bank account, a reputation, a comparison we make when we scroll past someone else's life. We are all, in our own way, stacking bricks to make a name.
The God Who Comes Down
Here is the tender surprise in the Babel story. When the people built up to reach heaven, the Scripture says the Lord came down to see the city (Genesis 11:5). He did not need to climb their tower. No structure we raise ever actually gets us closer to God. He always has to come down to us.
And that is the whole message of the gospel, isn't it? We could not build our way up to Him, so He came down to us. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Not a tower of stone, but a Savior of flesh and blood, stooping low into a manger, walking dusty roads, climbing not a monument but a cross. Jesus made a name for us instead of demanding we make one for ourselves.
There is a great relief in this if you will let it settle. You do not have to build something impressive to be seen by God. You do not have to out-climb your neighbor. The most beautiful tower in the world will one day be dust, but "the one who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17).
Build, but Build Low
So go ahead and marvel at the skylines. Enjoy the wonder of what human hands can do; it is a real reflection of God's creativity in us. But build your life on something lower and older than any foundation of steel — the solid rock of Christ Himself.
Around here in Ravenna, most of what we build is ordinary: a home, a family, a garden, a life of quiet faithfulness. None of it will make a top-ten list. But a life built low, built humble, built on Jesus, will still be standing when the tallest towers have fallen. And the God who came down is close to those who keep their feet on the ground and their eyes on Him.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.