Reading in Genesis Chapter 11 today,
"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward,they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel —because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth." Gen 11-1-9 (NIV)
I have to admit, when I first read this I didn't get why the Lord would see this as a bad thing. A city, unified by a common goal. What's the problem with that?
But then I read it through again and one sentence stood out to me, "so that we may make a name for ourselves"
The motivation to build this city was not to know God or to glorify him. It was to exalt themselves. Therefore God frustrated those plans.
We are designed by God to be in a relationship with him. He is our nourishment, he gives us our purpose. We are his workmanship meant to bring honor to his name, and his name alone.
God will frustrate any plans in our lives that do not align with his goal and promise to form us into the image of his son.
"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:10 (NIV)
