Without the help of the LORD it is useless to build a home or to guard a city. It is useless to get up early and stay up late in order to earn a living. God takes care of his own, even while they sleep.
No-one enjoys wasting their effort. To work flat out only to find it was all in vain is soul destroying. However many people find they come to this conclusion later on in life. They spent years on their career only to be made redundant when the hard times came. They invested years into their children only to see them leave home and make the mistakes you tried to spare them from. People pour years of their life into a marraige to find their partner has been unfaithful and destroyed everything they were building.
The Psalmist says "unless the Lord builds the house the people labour in vain". All our efforts are simply wasted effort without them being Christ centred. The Contemprary English Version puts it well "without the help of the Lord it is useless to build a home". So much of the modern culture is about putting 110% into everything. However this scripture in Psalm 127 places the focus elsewhere. It's not about spending more and more time on something, it's about who is helping you, who is doing the building. The CEV puts it as "It is useless to get up early and stay up late in order to earn a living". But so often this is our answer. Do more. Work harder. Put in more hours. Meanwhile God says "I give rest to the ones I love"
Lets face it. There is always more to be done than can fit into one day. So do we stay up trying to get it all done, running at the pace this world has set, franticly cramming it all in. Or do we, go to bed, rest, enjoy the peacefull sleep that God gives safe in the knowledge that he is building the house. I'm not saying we should be lazy or neglectful. We shouldn't adopt a "laissez-faire" attitude. But God's people should demonstrate his peace at work in our life. We should work hard and sleep well. He gave us rest. It's His gift to us.
A common theme in the prayer time that my wife and I have before sleeping is to say "Lord, we want you to be in the centre of our family, our marraige, our life". I can't say I really know what this fully means, or how God works it out. But it's an invitation to God to put himself squarely in the centre, to be the one who is building the house.
And so to bed, uncharacteristically early!
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