Look What I Made!

It’s 10:08 p.m. on a Friday night, and during a commercial break of Love Island with Alexa, I picked up my phone to jot down a list of things I need from Ace Hardware tomorrow. I’ve got a photo widget on my home screen that rotates through pictures, and tonight it landed on this one of my nephew, Ezra, about three years ago (he’s six now) showing me a Lego creation he built while I was visiting my brother’s family in Houston.

I smiled and thought, I want that.

I want to create something and be so proud of it that I admire it deeply as I share it with someone. In that moment, Ezra was proud. He was fulfilled. He was content. He wasn’t thinking about anything else.

There was something holy about that moment. It stirred something in me, a longing not just to make something, but to feel that kind of deep, quiet joy in the making. Here’s what Ezra’s Lego ship reminded me:

We were made to build.
There’s something deeply biblical about creating. In Genesis, the very first thing we learn about God is that He created. He formed the heavens, the earth, and every detail in between – not out of boredom or busywork, but out of joy and intention. Then He made us in His image. That means we’re wired to build, to design, to make something where nothing used to be.

Ezra’s Lego ship reminded me of that truth: there’s something sacred about the work of our hands. In Exodus 31, when God appoints Bezalel (probably haven’t heard his name in a minute) to craft the tabernacle, He fills him with “the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills to make artistic designs… to engage in all kinds of crafts.”

That Lego build? It was worship in its purest form. Not flashy. Just faithful.

Be present enough to create.
Ezra wasn’t distracted. He was dialed in. Every brick clicked into place with purpose. He didn’t rush it, and he didn’t multitask. And when he was done, he had something whole.

Me? I can barely make it through a task without checking three apps and overthinking six unrelated problems. But that moment reminded me that beauty shows up when we slow down long enough to build without looking sideways.

Fulfillment starts with your hands.
Ezra didn’t borrow that joy from someone else. He earned it, one colorful brick at a time. Sometimes I forget that I don’t need to wait for circumstances to line up or clients to call back to feel proud of something. I can get off the couch, use what I have, and build something right now.

Jesus was a carpenter. Paul was a tentmaker. David was a shepherd. John the Baptist was probably the first documented influencer (think about it, haha). Work…real, tactile, soul-filling work isn’t something to rush past. It forms us.

You don’t have to monetize everything.
Ezra wasn’t trying to sell me his spaceship or pitch it to Lego corporate. He just made it because it was fun. I need more of that. More “I built this because I wanted to,” and less “How do I scale this and turn it into an eight-figure passive income stream?”

There’s room in life for pure, inefficient, joyful creativity.

Show your people.
What did Ezra do the moment he finished? He brought it to me. Not to be praised but to share the joy. That hit me hard. Because when I’m really proud of something, I want to bring it to people who matter. Not to be validated. But to say: “Look. I made this. I’m pumped about it!”

And isn’t that kind of what God does with us? He makes, He shapes, He loves and then He says: “Come and see what I’ve done.”

That photo was a tap on the shoulder. A reminder from the Spirit through a six-year-old kid and a bucket of bricks: You were made to build something. Not to go viral. Not to impress. But to feel that quiet, contented joy of holding it out to someone and saying, “Look what I made!”

I want that.

(10:39 p.m.)