Building Up or Tearing Down

“Today I have put you in charge of nations and kingdoms. You will uproot and tear down. You will destroy and overthrow. You will build and plant” Jeremiah 1:10

This isn’t necessarily a verse that we hear in church very often. Uproot and tear down?  Destroy and overthrow?  Following Jesus is about faith, hope, and love, right? It’s about building and planting, isn’t it?

Not when it comes to dealing with evil.  Whether it’s defeating our Goliaths or hating our sin, Scripture reserves some of its strongest language for how we conquer the enemy through Christ. We are called to uproot what the enemy has infected by the power of the Holy Spirit.  When a tree doesn’t bear fruit, it must be uprooted. 

Much has been uprooted in the last year in our nation as well as other nations around the world

And while we conquer evil and sin through Christ, we also focus on building and planting in place of what was uprooted.  In other words, we look for opportunities to bring God’s goodness to bear in the midst of difficult situations.  Sometimes that happens out in the community and sometimes it happens in our own hearts.

Sometimes tearing down and building up means that we take an honest and candid look at ourselves to determine what works and what doesn’t.

Over the past year, Bill and I have done just that at The Goodness Project.  We prayerfully and carefully considered some operations, programs, and methods that were no longer as helpful as they once were, and we replaced them with foundations that will last for years to come.  We take the mission of The Goodness Project very seriously, and we want the mission to continue long after we are gone.   

For many years now, we have served hundreds of other non-profits around the country, supplying them with necessary resources for their community.  We have streamlined that work, making changes to some of our programs as well as our operations in order to serve our partners with greater efficiency and speed.  

We also serve partners internationally. In faith, we sent seven containers filled with necessities to the Holy Land in 2020.  As the pandemic picked up around the world, we then lost our ability to travel to Israel to expand our work there.   However, I’m excited to tell you that Bill and I are heading back to Israel this month to build more strategic partnerships and explore how we might grow our efforts there.

We are also working with partners who are helping refugees of Ukraine who are fleeing to Israel.

They anticipate more than 100,000 Ukrainians will move into Israel by the end of this year. As the war in Ukraine rages on, there is a tremendous need to get resources into Israel to help these refugees. We deeply appreciate your prayers regarding Israel, both in its own struggles with surrounding countries and its role on the international stage as it supports Ukraine.  

Here in the U.S., we have been busy as winter turns into spring.  Make sure to read our reports of some other events The Goodness Project is involved in within the north and in the south!

In our walk with Christ, we are either building up or tearing down!  What might God be calling you to build or to remove? Like me, you may not know how to respond to or follow that call. But if we are willing, God is willing. And then there’s no limit to what God can accomplish through us.

In His Goodness,

Bill & Rachelle Fletcher

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