How Much Weight Can Your Life Actually Hold?

A skyscraper in midtown Manhattan was inspected, signed off on, and certified safe. Days later, construction workers watched two steel columns buckle under 16 stories of weight. In this final episode of the Firm Foundation series, Jess unpacks what "falling bricks" look like in a human life, and the four things engineers did to save that building that mirror exactly how God builds strong people.

Discover:

• The NYC Pfizer building collapse and what went wrong beneath the surface
• Why "certified safe on paper" isn't the same as actually being strong
• Four engineering responses that map directly to spiritual growth: inspect, stabilize, investigate, rebuild
• How 10 minutes a day in the Word functions as structural steel under your life

Most of us don't collapse all at once. We just keep adding floors. New responsibilities, new pressures, new seasons on top of a frame nobody's checked in years. This episode is a gut-check invitation: not to panic, but to let God walk the floors of your building before a crisis forces the inspection. It's practical, it's honest, and it might be the nudge you didn't know you needed.

Key Takeaways:

• Falling bricks (short fuse, skipped prayer, defensiveness) are symptoms, not the problem. They're clues to something deeper.
• Daily time in the Word isn't homework. It's shoring. Ten minutes placed under your life every day, floor by floor.
• Schedule your spiritual foundation like it holds up your life, because it actually does. Put it in your calendar before you pick up your phone.

Question for you to think about:

What's the four-inch sag in your life that you've been calling normal?

If this one hit home, share it with someone who's been adding floors without an inspection. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and drop a comment telling us: what does your "falling bricks" moment look like?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So a question. I was hanging out with my husband, and kind of in passing, he had mentioned to me last week about this building in New York City that started to collapse. Did you guys hear about that? No, it's insane. So so here's the story, and it's like ongoing reporting. But um last Tuesday morning, just after 8 a.m., in the New York City Fire Department got a call about a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, the old Pfizer headquarters. Um and the call wasn't that the building was collapsing, it was that bricks were falling off the building. Little tiny pieces just hitting the sidewalk. And um, here's the thing about bricks that I think is really interesting and ties into um what we're gonna talk about today. Bricks don't just fall, they're a clue to something, right? So minutes later, construction workers up on the 21st floor literally watched two massive steel columns buckle. Um they were holding up 16 stories above them. They started to buckle right there. So um the whole neighborhood got evacuated. It was a big fat thing. Streets closed, and thank God, literally nobody was hurt. Now that building was in the middle of a huge conversion. They're turning old offices into over 1,600 apartments, adding 11 brand new floors on top of the original structure. New weight, old columns, big fat mess. And here's the detail that I really can't shake. The inspection firm had reviewed the structural work and signed off on it. So on paper, that building was certified safe. The paperwork said that it was strong. The steel actually literally said otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast, where we bring practical help for your faith and life. Here's today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I really love the connection to what it what it is that we've been talking about over the last um, what is it, four or five weeks? We've been talking about um a firm foundation, right? And so here's my question for you today: how much weight can your life hold? So we're not talking about your calendar, we're talking about you, your inner structure. Um, because most of us, we don't actually collapse, we just keep on adding floors on, right? And so maybe it's a new job, maybe it's a new baby, new pressure, whatever it is, a remodel on top of the frame. Nobody has inspected in years sometimes, right? And a lot of us have the paperwork, a lot of us have what we would think are the credentials. We know the verses, maybe we grew up in church, certified safe, right? That's what we assume. But today, on this final follow-up to our firm foundation series, I want to talk about what falling bricks look like in a human life and the four things the engineers did in Manhattan to address it, because it turns out it's exactly how God builds strong people. So my name is Jess, and this is Midweek Motivation. Let's get into it. All right. So falling bricks moment. What might be your falling bricks moment? I've had so many over the years, right? Small external symptoms, um, maybe it's a short fuse, um, maybe it's uh skipped prayer time, maybe I'm starting to get in my own head about things instead of talking to God about them. Um there are things that maybe we dismiss in a busy season. Um so in those situations, we don't collapse, we add floors. Uh maybe it's overtime or work pressure, maybe it's a financial strain, experience that. Um, kids' sports schedules can be insane and take over your life. All things that can add uh, you know, load to your your current um situation, right? The scary part is that your paperwork, again, it says that you're fine, you're going to church, maybe you are leaning into Bible knowledge, but you're not really um applying stuff certified safe. But the certification itself is not actual strength. So God doesn't want to just inform you. Pastor Steve Rady talked about that this weekend. He wants to form you in actuality. Matthew 7, 24 through 25 says, Though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against the house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. And when the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. So Jesus uses construction language here. He ends his biggest sermon with this information, and the difference between the two is structural. One of them put um Jesus' instruction into place, and the other one didn't. Hearing is the blue pip blueprint, and practice is the actual steel being um implemented and put into place. So when we go back and we we review what it was that um they did to address the Manhattan issue, they did these four things. The first thing that they did was inspect. So they didn't rush in to make repairs, they couldn't. They spent hours just watching the building. They had sensors on everything, going floor by floor before touching anything. They needed an honest assessment assessment before they can actually they could actually fix anything. One of my favorite verses when I first started really investing in diving into the Bible and growing in my faith was um Psalm 139.23 and 24 really stand out specifically to this. Um it says, Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Search me, oh God. Strong people invite inspection in before a crisis forces it. And I think this is really interesting because I was thinking through the idea of how we build strength through exposure to things. But this is really preemptive. Like you're getting into it and you're preparing before the load even builds, before the load even adds, right? God is inviting, uh sorry, David, the psalmist, is inviting God to inspect him and to point out any weak spots before the load comes, right? So when's the last time that you let God or anyone walk the floors in your building? You know, not just the foyer, not just the lobby um where you show visitors, but like the 21st floor. When is the last time that you invited them in to check things out? When was the last time that you dove into your scripture and measured yourself again against what it is that God calls um you to do and and be real about it? I feel very convicted about this all the time. And what that's one of the reasons why this is was one of my favorite scriptures, because I in that moment when I was first diving into follow what G following Jesus looked like, I wanted him to reveal those things to me. And I wanted to be able to uproot those things or reinforce those things um with what it was that God was calling calling me to reinforce it with. So um I lost my spot, guys. All right. I wanted that from God. I wanted him to point out those places and let me know where the weak spots were and how to reinforce them. So invite God in and let him search you. Not just God, but also people that you trust, right? But you gotta dive into your word and you gotta know where um where the those places are. All right, point two. So the second thing that they did um is they stabilized. So they inspected first, they watched, they wanted to to um make sure that the place wasn't gonna come down, right? So the second thing that they do was did was they stabilized. They put weight-bearing supports under the um the columns that were um buckling. So they used jacks, they used all kinds of things to to pump that stuff up. Okay, here it is. So jacks at the weakest points were put into place first, and then steel supports floor after floor. So eight um floor eighteen through twenty-three, and then nine through thirty-seven. Uh it was not one dramatic fix right off the bat. It was support placed everywhere, repeatedly. That's our daily devotion. That's um not the homework. It's not homework, it's shoring. So it's 10 minutes of the word placed under your life every day, floor by floor. Ten minutes. Tomorrow morning, before you pick up your phone, that's it. That's the jeck under the weakest spot in your life. And uh, I'll be real honest, this has not always been something that's been very solid and strategic in my life. It's definitely been a process that I've built over the years, but I can tell you without fail and without question, every time I've got this in my life and it's uh it's in place, um, I feel the support. I feel the stability. It's so good. And and you know, if you're new to faith and if you're new to getting into the Bible, you don't need an engineer's degree to start. You don't have to have, you know, this big epic plan of getting into the Bible 10 minutes, one chapter, or maybe it's Discovery Bible questions that are in your notes. Um, you can check those out. Those questions were actually built for anybody to be able to read scripture, figure out, you know, what God is where God is in that scripture, figure out what the scripture says about God, figure out what the scripture says about people, and figure out what it's telling you to apply. So try it out. It's actually really pretty incredible. Okay, point three, the third thing that they did was they investigate. So this is where we go deeper into symptoms, right? So once stable, the investigators asked, why? Why was the building starting to collapse? Was it the design, the sequence? What load was on those columns? One lead engineer said that the first questions aren't about blame, they're about understanding the load. And that again is that's those DBS questions. Um they take you past what does this first what does this verse say into what's the real load on my life and what will I actually do about it. One of the developers that was involved in this whole process with this building, um, he calls the situation that came up a typical construction mishap, and asked whether a four-inch sag that they were um noticing was really uh what did he say? I want to get I want to get this right. Sorry, I lost my place again. Okay, he asked whether the four-inch sag was really, it really counts as a collapse. And that's us sometimes, right? It's minimizing. Um maybe it's we're saying it's just a little bit of stress, it's just a season. Friends, bricks don't just fall, they're an indicator of something, right? So, what's the four-inch sag in your life that you've been calling normal? I'll tell you, I was sitting in service and it was either this last Sunday or the Sunday before, and I leaned over to my husband and I was like, I'm feeling really convicted right now. I'm feeling really convicted because I'm noticing a sag in my attitude and in the assumptions that I make based on things that that um people say, he and I in particular. Like I was just unusually defensive about things, and I was feeling a little bit called out during the message. It's a sag. That's a little bit little brick fall. That is um, that's something that I need to identify and bring to God, right? So, what are the bricks um that you are experiencing or what is the sag that you're experiencing in your life? All right, the fourth thing that they needed to do was to determine a long-term solution. So Shoring only got the building out of danger. The long-term fix is a full rebuild. Um, new steel, new floor plates, everything leveled and fixed in place, brand new. A plan, um, a plan, then actual construction, right? Yeah. So inspection, stabilization, stabilization, investigation. That's what God does when you open the word honestly. But strength comes from what gets built next out of that. And nobody's ever been held up by a blueprint by a blueprint. Um, it's a steel column that holds us up, right? So my encouragement to you is to make a plan. Ten minutes a day in the Word. Maybe use this week's um uh Discovery Bible study questions. Do it once with a pen. Um weight-bearing steel gets scheduled. So you want to make a plan for it and you want to schedule it. Put it in your calendar like it holds up your life because it actually does. Um, you can find the daily devotions on our notes on the website. Cut that, that's incorrect. You can find daily devotions using the Bible app. There's all kinds of stuff in there. If that's something new to you, um dive in there. Um, and you can even find a devotion that focuses on maybe something that's sagging or maybe some bricks that are falling in your life that are uh trying to be an indicator to you. Um Discovery Bible uh study questions you can find in our notes for weekend sermons. Uh, over the whole Firm Foundation series, there's Discovery Bible um study questions in each of the notes. Um, two things, 10 minutes a day, two options. Uh one, sit down with the questions, start tomorrow, and it's gonna change everything for you. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us in this series of Firm Foundation. I really hope that it had a serious impact on you and got you ready for some transformation. And um, we're gonna catch you next week. Bye guys.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Midweek Motivation. To make sure you don't miss any content in the future, please subscribe, share, and if you enjoyed this, give us a like and consider popping by a Westside service some weekend. You can find out more at Westside Community Church.com.