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Unless the Lord...

 Unless the Lord builds a house, They who build it labor in vain;

Unless the Lord guards a city, The watchman stays awake in vain.

It is futile for you to rise up early, To stay up late, To eat the bread of painful labor;
This is how He gives to His beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127)

 

          I’m stuck on the first verse because whether or not God is building my “house” (my life) is a huge question in my life. It is always a question we should ask Him. This is part of “Your kingdom come, Your will be done…” In Experiencing God, Henry Blackabee writes of observing where God is working, and joining Him there rather than trying to get Him to come join you in your work.

          Things have happened that make me think I’m supposed to be headed in one direction, and I’m heading in that direction. But am I interpreting correctly? I know He’ll make course corrections if I’m faithfully following wrongly, but is what I’m doing here and down south what He wants, or am I just deceiving myself.

          I’ve tried to build a number of houses, and I seem to have gotten them wrong time after time. The structures fell apart. The struggle with this is that those failures may have been part of God’s plan to teach me things I couldn’t learn otherwise. But to me, they were failures and wastes of time.

          Another part of the problem is that I (we?) believe that if God builds a house, it must be glorious, succeed, and last forever. There can be no short-term housing involved. But God doesn’t tend to play by my (our) rules. This is where we're to be for this moment, day, week, month, year, or decade. Tomorrow, it may not be the same.

          In all of that uncertainty, this remains true. Unless the Lord builds a house, a life, a relationship, a business, or a garden, they who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the house (etc.), or city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It isn’t our labor that makes or keeps things, though our labor may be requested. Ultimately, we do best to follow His lead as best we can and be willing to make changes as He makes it clear we should change. Grumble, grumble, I’m not getting the clear answers I want, but onward I go.

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