It wouldn’t make sense to build a house with spaghetti. Cooked, the spaghetti would be too limp, uncooked it would be too brittle – and either limp or brittle, a spaghetti house would not last.

Yet too many times in life – we resort to spaghetti building.

Scottish National Party First Minister Alex Salmond resigned his position following his party’s unsuccessful bid to gain Scottish independence from the United Kingdom. Prior to the election, those pushing for independence and those pushing against it spent a ton of money, energy, effort and publicity pushing their agendas. In the end, they were engaging in spaghetti building.

Wherever we live, we need to become involved in our government and voice our concerns and choices. If we don’t, someone with a louder voice takes over. We need to stand up for what we believe in and be willing to expend time, energy and effort to make that stand. But we also need to remember that much of what we do in this life – no matter how impassioned and well-intentioned – is simply spaghetti building. This life that we live right now on planet earth is not intended to be the end of the story. No matter how much money we spend on our health and appearance and how much success and fame we garner down here on earth – in the end, we shatter like broken spaghetti.

The good news is that Jesus Christ, Son of God, is eternal. He is forever. He has built a forever place for us out of gold and precious stones to replace the earthly spaghetti houses we are building. The body shells that hold us on this planet and return to dust like crushed spaghetti get left behind when we “die.” We don’t need them anymore because we get new heavenly bodies that never grow old, never hurt, never sorrow – never lose their perfection.

So when things don’t turn out the way you think they should, don’t get discouraged. Take a handful of spaghetti, crush it and say, “This setback is temporary. It doesn’t matter. God’s plan for me is perfect and it’s eternal.”

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