The Cathedral Builder Who Got It Backwards

In 1882, Antoni Gaudí took over construction of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, convinced he was building something magnificent for God. He poured forty-three years of his life into that basilica — sleeping in his workshop, refusing other commissions, sketching spires that wouldn't be completed in his lifetime. When friends urged him to hurry, Gaudí famously replied, "My client is not in a hurry." He died in 1926 with barely a quarter of the structure finished.

Here's what Gaudí couldn't have foreseen: that unfinished church would build something far greater than he ever planned. It became a pilgrimage site drawing four million visitors a year. It inspired architects across generations. It turned an entire neighborhood into sacred ground. Gaudí set out to build a house for God, and God used that offering to build a legacy Gaudí never imagined — one still rising from the scaffolding nearly a century and a half later.

David had the same impulse. He looked at his cedar palace, then at God's tent, and thought, "I should build something for the Almighty." But God, through Nathan, reversed the blueprint entirely: "I will build you a house." Not stone and timber, but a dynasty. Not a structure with walls, but a covenant without end. God took David's modest offer and returned an eternal kingdom — a throne that would endure forever, fulfilled ultimately in Christ. We come to God with our little blueprints, and He hands back an inheritance beyond anything we could draft.