Day 34
“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”
-Psalm 127:1
Psalm 127 is a Song of Ascent, sung by Hebrew pilgrims who had to ascend the uphill road to Jerusalem. The house and city in this verse refers to God’s temple and Jerusalem respectively. Without God’s help, all of our efforts to build or watch will be futile.
Most people know about the Great Wall of China. The wall is about 21,200km long, 8m high and up to 5m wide. It was essentially constructed to defend China from invaders. Yet history tells us that the Mongolians still managed to breach the wall. The interesting thing is that they didn’t use any force to break through these massive walls. Instead, all they did was to simply bribe the guard!
Similarly, without God’ blessing, our work will not succeed. Anything can cause our work to fail. Apart from God, everything we do will be in vain. If we are to experience God’s provision and grace in our work, we must not only start with God, but we must continue with Him as well.
And this means seeking God’s approval, wisdom, presence and glory first before all else.
I have learnt, sometimes the hard way, that serving the Lord whether in church ministry, workplace or school, it is impossible to build His Kingdom without the King! Our Lord Jesus said in John 15:15 “Apart from me you can do nothing.” We can do nothing of worth to God’s Kingdom unless He is in it!
Have we been so consumed with building our own houses and filling our barns that we leave God out of the process? Or have we been jealously guarding what we have that we forget to examine our motives? We are mere stewards of God’s blessings. 1 Samuel 16:7b says, “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Let us humbly seek God’s help and blessing in all we do today.
Vincent Lim 🙏