The Design They Threw Away

In 1956, a relatively unknown Danish architect named Jørn Utzon submitted his design for a new opera house in Sydney, Australia. The panel of judges reviewed 233 entries from around the world. Utzon's sketches were rough, almost incomplete — simple drawings of sail-shaped shells rising from a harbor peninsula. The judges set it aside in the rejection pile.

Then Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen arrived late to the judging. He began sifting through the discarded entries. When he pulled out Utzon's sketches, he stopped cold. "This is the winner," he declared. The other judges protested — the design was impractical, the engineering nearly impossible. But Saarinen insisted. He saw what the others had missed.

Today, the Sydney Opera House stands as one of the most recognizable structures on Earth, a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited by over eight million people a year. The design the builders rejected became the crowning jewel of an entire nation's identity.

The psalmist knew this pattern long before Sydney's harbor was ever mapped. "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes." Psalm 118 is a song of stunned gratitude — the grateful disbelief of someone who was cast aside and then lifted up by the hand of the Almighty. God specializes in retrieving what others discard. He pulls rejected things from the pile and makes them foundational. Whatever has been dismissed in your life — your calling, your worth, your hope — the Lord whose love endures forever is not finished with it yet. Open the gates of thanksgiving. This is the day He has made.