Psalm 127

This song of ascents is written by Solomon.  It is quite evident as it echoes his wisdom from proverbs and Ecclesiastes.  In Ecclesiastes 2, Solomon writes all that he accomplished and built and his conclusion was:

11 Yet when I considered all the effort which I expended and the toil with which I toiled to do, then behold, “Everything is vanity and chasing wind! There is nothing profitable under the sun!”

So, what does this mean then, we shouldn’t do anything because it is pointless?  It is easy to come to that conclusion, but it is quite the opposite.  Keep in mind the bolded parts in the verse above.  Solomon is talking about everything he did, not what the Lord did or what he did with the Lord.  This is where the difference is and this is also his point in Psalm 127.  Unless we involve the Lord in what we do, it will not be very fruitful.  

In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul discusses what it means to be a new person in Christ and what the transformation of our hearts looks like as we allow the Holy Spirit to change our ways.  He concludes it this way:

58 So then, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Furthermore, I feel it is pertinent to once again review what Jesus said towards the end of his Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew 7, we find what has become for me one of the most important passages in the bible:

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ 23 And then ⌊I will say to them plainly⌋, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’ 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

What is our takeaway here? The Christian life is not about doing things for God, but rather with God. This has become one of my “soap boxes” that I am very passionate about because I know in myself, I have a tendency to do things that I think would be pleasing to God and others, but I fall short in asking first if it would be.  This seems like a simple concept, but consider a child that at age 6, decides to make mom and dad breakfast in bed and creates a huge mess in the kitchen before they even wake up.  On top of that, the pancakes taste horrible and are burnt because the child, although well intentioned, never asked for help or if his parents wanted him to do it.  They appreciate the effort and heart behind it, but it was never something they wanted him to do in the first place!

Now, shift that focus to us as the children and God as the parent.  Wouldn’t it make sense to ask God first what He would have us do?  He knows what is best…after all, He created us!  He made us all with individual gifts and abilities.  Additionally, too often we may set out to do something and ask God to bless it instead of asking Him what He would bless before we do it.  If we ask first what He would have us do, then we will know the effort will be blessed because He told us to do it, instead of asking Him to bless something He never intended to bless for us.  Essentially, when we move without God’s guidance, we set ourselves up for failure.  We also set ourselves up for heartache when God doesn’t bless it!

So let us remember, then, to first pause and ask God, “What would You have me do?”  Otherwise, we are wasting time and resources on projects that we weren’t meant to accomplish.