Inspiration Station - The Tower of Babel Building Project

Something radical happens when we challenge the cultural narrative that making a name for ourselves should be our life goal. This episode digs into a counterintuitive truth that could transform your approach to success and legacy forever.

The Tower of Babel story provides a powerful lens through which we examine modern ambition. Those ancient builders, motivated by pride and fear of irrelevance, created an extraordinary structure – all to elevate their own reputation. Sound familiar? We explore four problematic motivations that drove their project: the desire to create a lasting name, the tendency toward isolation, the shortcutting of established methods, and the disobedience of divine guidance. Each of these motivations resonates with today's achievement-oriented culture.

What makes this conversation so compelling is how it exposes the subtle ways pride infiltrates our ambitions. Pride convinces us that our name should be paramount, that our methods are superior, and that isolation is preferable to community. Yet as the Babel story demonstrates, even remarkable unity and engineering prowess can't overcome the fundamental flaw of pride-centered motivation. When our projects are built on the foundation of self-promotion, they're destined to create confusion rather than lasting impact.

Are you constructing your own Tower of Babel? We offer three penetrating questions to help you identify pride-driven ambition in your life. Do you regularly take shortcuts because you believe your approach is better? Do you prefer isolation to community engagement? Does your name and recognition matter more than the accomplishments of those around you? Your answers might reveal whether your ambitions are building something meaningful or merely monuments to pride. The choice is yours – will you pursue making your name great, or will you align with purposes greater than yourself?

We explore the dangerous allure of making a name for ourselves and why it might be one of the worst life decisions we can make. Using the biblical Tower of Babel story, we examine how pride-driven ambition leads to division and failure rather than true fulfillment and legacy.

• The Babel Tower project was driven by pride and fear of irrelevance
• Four motivations behind Babel: creating a name, separating from others, circumventing established methods, and disobeying instructions
• Pride is a dangerous enemy we must guard against
• The power of unity and agreement was demonstrated even in this misguided project
• God responded to their pride by confounding their language and stopping the project

Are you building your own Babel Tower? Ask yourself: Do you take shortcuts because you think your way is better? Are you prone to isolation rather than community? Do you prioritize your name and legacy above others?

Buzzsprout - Launch Your Podcast Now!
I trust this host. You will too! Start for FREE

Buzzsprout - Launch Your Podcast Now!
I trust this host. You will too! Start for FREE

Chapters

• 0:00 Making a Name: A Dangerous Pursuit
• 2:04 The Babel Tower Project Explained
• 4:59 Four Motivations Behind Building Babel
• 9:10 God's Response to Pride
• 9:59 Three Questions for Self-Reflection

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

On the next episode of the Inspiration Station, I'm going to show you why making a name for yourself could be the worst decision you ever made in your life. Might not make sense right now, but it will before the episode is done. Thank you for watching. We start right now. Thank you, welcome back to the All Purpose Pod or an All Purpose Life. Wherever you are and however you're listening to, the Call Me, mr U and the Inspiration Station. Thanks again for making us part of your week. We definitely appreciate you guys. We're getting a love on our social media platforms and on our YouTube channel. We're growing exponentially and we thank you guys for that. We're convinced that the content we put down here is valuable and relevant to you and we're seeing it play out. So thank you again for listening. Let's jump into this, all right? So I said from the outset that making a name for yourself is probably one of the worst things you could ever do in your life. I know there was some eye rolls. People said how could that be possible? Making a name for yourself is all we can do in this life, right? Well, I'm going to say that we're wrong. I grew up in a place, in a region, in a country where making a name for yourself was all it was about the whole quest, from the time we got out of diapers and the training pants to wearing adult clothes or children's clothes. The whole point was to make a name for yourselves, get out of your neighborhood, do something important with your life and allow your name theoretically to live on. Now, what you see sometimes are people having so many babies they feel like that's the way to have their name live on. That's one route, but that's not really what we're talking about today. Now there's a story that I share about so many times on our podcast and if you don't read the Bible or you don't subscribe to biblical things, you still know the story because you heard it so many times out of my own mouth on this podcast and on many shows on this brand. But there was a story in the account inscripts in the book of Genesis where they were a group of people they were I wouldn't call them outcasts, but they had some outcast tendencies, let's just put it like that and they had it in their mind that they were seeing so much progress and so much growth around them in neighboring tribes and nations. They said, in order for us to preserve our name. We must do something drastic In order to preserve our name and our great heritage. The heritage wasn't that great, to be honest, but in their mind it was a great legacy and what they wanted to do was to build a tower so high that it would touch heaven and, I guess, in some ways, get God's attention. So they were. This proved the power of agreement. They came together and they agreed on building this tower and they built it. They built it from the ground up and so high that it nearly touched heaven, but it definitely got God's attention.

Speaker 1: 3:50

What was the motivation for this project that I call the Babel Tower Project? What was the motivation for this? It's not like in today's time where somebody builds a tower or a skyscraper or a high rise because they want to be known forever. Well, I guess maybe they're similar. They want to be known forever as making the builders the biggest tower ever built in this particular city or in the continent they live in. It's for name sake, it's for glory, it's for bragging rights, if you will.

Speaker 1: 4:25

It's not really a good reason to build a skyscraper or a tower. There should be better reasons for that. But man, in their lack of infinite wisdom, do things because of selfish reasons. Do things because of selfish reasons. They do it for vain glory, they do it to self-aggrandize themselves or to make themselves feel important and valuable.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Well, this tribe of people weren't much different than the normal human being that we know today. They had the means to build a tower, and they built it. What was the point, though? Their rationale for building it was as follows they wanted to create a tower, and they built it. What was the point, though? Their rationale for building it was as follows they wanted to create a name for themselves. They wanted to try to sustain their legacy. The people around them were growing so much and so big they wanted to feel like they were about to be swallowed up, and they felt like they were about to lose their culture and their heritage, or at least become irrelevant. So they wanted to stay relevant and stay above the above the waves, so to speak. So they built a tower to create a name for themselves, so they could say you know what? This is our legacy. We did this. This is about us, and we're greater than everybody else, and this is the level that we should be on.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Also, the second reason why they built this big tower, the Babel Tower Project, as I call it, is because they wanted to separate themselves from everybody else. They didn't want to be a part of the growing nation. They didn't want to assimilate, they didn't want to kind of even grow into things that God was calling for in that region, kind of even grow into things that God was calling for in that region. They wanted to isolate themselves and do their own thing outside of everybody else and also outside of God. That part's important. Anytime you build something and we don't have his goals or his heart and mind, it becomes an anti-God thing and then you have to ask yourself what's the end result of that work going to be? And also the third thing I think was the reason why they had this babel tower project is because they wanted to shortcut or circumvent the method that were already set in place. God was already doing something within the tribes and the communities laws and policies that he was instituting in that region with the people but they didn't want to yield to that.

Speaker 1: 6:40

And also, in their own pride, they wanted to rise or elevate themselves so high that God would have to notice them and God would have to give them their props. They wanted props from God. Think about how prideful and arrogant that sounds. They wanted God to notice them and to give them their proper respect. Do you recognize that, even if you to give them their proper respect, do you recognize that, even if you have similar minds to these people, you recognize that, as long as you're breathing, you have something that belongs to him and you belong to him? As a result, if he takes back his property, takes back his breath, you cease to live, you cease to exist. So you can't puff your chest up and say you know what? I want God to give me my props. You don't have anything without God. You don't even have props without God. Another story you're going to a different place On top of that.

Speaker 1: 7:30

Lastly, the fourth reason why I think this happened is because they were just disobeying instructions. They were already being given a set of rules and policies in the community and they decided to circumvent all that stuff and do their own thing, because the pride inside of them wanted them to establish their own cells and just said bump everybody else in the community. We're for ourselves. We're not trying to help anybody, support anybody else. We're going to do our own thing and just support us. It sounds almost like racism, I guess in a way it kind of is.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Well, this project fast forward to the end of the story. They built this tower super high I don't think it reached heaven, but it was pretty close and it got God's attention. And what he did and a lot of people would be like, oh that's so sad. It's not sad, grow up. What God did was he confounded their language. That's why we call it Babel, because Babel means B-A-B-B-L-E means foolish and incomprehensible. They were on one accord and they were on one accord, which again speaks to the power of unity. They were together and when you're together you can do anything. That's the other moral of the story, or the sub moral of the story. When you're unified, you're in agreement. Nothing you can't accomplish with somebody else. So what God did was he confounded their language. The Bible says he made it impossible for them to be able to communicate with each other. So that killed the whole pride, the pride project they were building To build this big tower to reach heaven, because they couldn't communicate with each other. So it killed the building project and the point of that was that pride was the motivating factor. Maybe fear as well, but pride was definitely the motivating factor for why this Babel Tower project took place. And look what happens when you walk in pride. It's not going to work and that's why pride is such a dangerous enemy. We need to guard against it and watch against it.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Now ask yourself this question Are you the kind of person that takes shortcuts and circumvents methods because you don't feel like doing that, or you don't respect the person in authority over you? Just something to think about, but answer that question for yourself. You got to answer for me or in the comment section, answer for yourself. Are you the kind of person that normally takes shortcuts and circumvents methods because you think your way is better, or you think you're smarter than the person that's in authority over you? Something to think about.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Two, are you the kind of person that's prone to isolation? As a self-professed introvert, I get why you got to fight against that. I like to spend some time and do my own thing, being alone and meditating and that kind of stuff. But isolation is a bad thing for anybody, introvert or extrovert. It's not a good thing. Are you the kind of person that craves isolation? Nine times out of 10, you'd rather be alone with nobody around you. No community, no fellowship, no friendships. Are you that kind of person? Something to think about.

Speaker 1: 10:27

And three do you feel like your name is more important than those around, you's names or what they're trying to accomplish in life? What they're trying to build like your name is first and foremost and everything you do is centered on achieving the goal of establishing your name and making your name great. It's just something to think about those. Those are three hard questions. I hope you can answer them. I'll drop them in the comment section so you can take a look at them again, but hopefully we'll wind back. Answer those three questions and let me know if you're building a Babel Tower project in your neck of the woods. Have a great day. Thanks for listening. We're out. We'll see you next time.