I woke up the other morning with a worship song playing in my head—“Build a Boat” by Colton Dixon.

“I will build a boat in the sand where they say it never rains. I will stand up in faith; I’ll do anything it takes. With your wind in my sails, your love never fails or fades. I’ll build a boat, so let it rain!”

Boats come in many forms, and they don’t all look the same. Your boat might look like a favorite chair you sit in everyday when you talk to God. For others, it might be a finely tuned worship playlist that lifts them up on a bad day. One thing all boats do have in common: they keep us from drowning.

I had a dream not too long ago. Actually, it was more like a nightmare. A wave of negative emotions hit me in this nightmare, and I began reciting scripture until I woke up. When we spend time in the word of God, we are building for ourselves a way out when disaster strikes; we are building for ourselves a boat.

How many of us are building boats? How many of us have faith enough to build something? It’s one thing to claim you believe, but building something takes effort; it takes time. What we build is a testament to our faith.

Have you ever gotten to know someone who was interested in you romantically—someone who moved way too fast? They claimed they were interested, but the truth is, they were actually interested in the idea of you, not you. When we genuinely want someone, we are willing to invest in that someone. We invest our time, and we invest our resources. The sense of urgency isn’t there simply because we have faith in what it is we are working toward.

We live in a quick and easy kind of culture. Everything is at our fingertips—internet, food, even socialization. No one wants to be patient for anything. When it comes to relationships of any kind, time is a factor that can’t be overlooked. We must put in the time to build a sturdy foundation.

What happens to a tree that isn’t firmly rooted in the ground? A strong wind comes along and knocks it down. Do you remember the story of the three little pigs? The pigs that built their houses from straw and sticks found that their houses were easily blown over. The third pig was wise, and he worked hard all day to build his house of bricks. When the Big Bad Wolf tried to blow his house down, he wasn’t successful.

We must stop building with that which doesn’t have the substance to sustain us long term and start building on top of our faith in an almighty God; we must start building with bricks!

God told Noah the flood was coming, and He told him to prepare and build a boat. It didn’t matter what everyone else was doing or thinking. Noah was obedient, and it was his faith in God that ultimately saved him and his family.

We are called to be builders in this day and age just as Noah was thousands of years ago. We are called to invest in our relationship with Christ, building diligently day by day. That way, when the enemy comes to do what he does—kill, steal, and destroy, he won’t be able to.

I want to encourage you to start today a journey towards something wonderful. Become so firmly rooted in your habits that you begin to create for yourself a safe place. I want to encourage you to build. It’s not so much about a destination as it is a gradual and consistent building of something of great worth to your soul—a boat.

My relationship with God has been taking form for many years; it’s not something that happened over night. Thus, it’s not something the enemy can destroy overnight; it’s not something he can destroy at all. You see, when we’ve built a boat, we have no reason to fear the rain.