TRUSTING
THE GREAT WALL

Topics: Betrayal; Morality; Security; Trust; Values

References: Proverbs 14:34; Ephesians 6:14

In ancient China, people wanted protection from barbarian hordes from the North. So the Great Wall of China was built: thirty feet high, eighteen feet thick, and more than fifteen hundred miles long.

The Chinese goal was to build an absolutely impenetrable defense—too high to climb over, too thick to break down, and too long to go around. The people trusted this wall to keep them safe. But during the first hundred years of the wall’s existence, China was successfully invaded three times.

It wasn’t the wall’s fault. During all three invasions, the barbaric hordes never climbed over the wall, broke it down, or went around it; they simply bribed a gatekeeper and then marched in through an open door. The purpose of the wall failed because of a breakdown in values.

—James Emery White, You Can Experience a Purposeful Life (Word, 2000)

PART 34: TRUTH AND LIES