Laboring in Vain

Part 1 - Unless the Lord Builds the House, they Labor in Vain who Build it.

My computer shut off again just before I finished writing this post in Word.  My computer likes to make updates and barely give me a warning. I woke my husband up in desperation saying “help”. He said “this is really taking over” and now I am left wondering and seeking the Lord – shall I continue to blog? I am not sure yet but the first thought was that “I just need to save more often and be more organized what files I save things.” This may be humanly wisdom but I will have to spend some time with the Lord on this and let you know.

Psalm 127:1-5 Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it;Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.
 ²It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors (Sorrows); For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep. ³Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. ⁴Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. ⁵How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

During the last few months, my husband and I have been seeking God on how to put first things first and prioritize our life according to His design. We are doing a study by Chip Ingram. God has been humbling me as I see more and more my need for Him to order every area of our family life. I thought I consulted God on most things but I am realizing more and more where I depended on my own wisdom or earthly wisdom to make decisions concerning certain areas like what to eat, where to go on vacations, how many camping trips to take, books I read. Life tends to get chaotic or out of balance when I try to run our house on my own good ideas. The days that I seek the Lord in all areas of life and truly wait and listen to Him, there is peace in our home.

Definition of Vain

Websters’ defined vain as 1.having no real value : idle, worthless <vain pretensions>

2 marked by futility or ineffectualness : unsuccessful, useless <vain efforts to escape>

3archaic : foolish, silly and 4 having or showing undue or excessive pride in one's appearance or achievements. The Free Dictionary (online) defines vain as 1. Not yielding the desired outcome; fruitless: a vain attempt.or 2. Lacking substance or worth.

How I have labored in Vain

I would venture to say we, wives and mothers, do not want our family life to fail. We also do not want “our efforts” to have no real value, be ineffectual or not yield the desired outcome.  The Lord is the only one who can “build” our house. He is the one who created our family, and He is the only one who knows how to order it properly.

Over the last couple of years, I have learned that many of my very thought out “good ways” that even seem Biblical or spiritual are not always God’s way of building a  house. I remember thinking as a wife and hostess that I needed to prepare a huge feast for the Holidays or company. I always enjoyed being a hostess and cooking but the problem arises when I become short with my family because I feel  stressed by the demands I put on myself. One Easter after feeling exhausted and stressed, I called out to God about this situation. I thought I was being kind and helpful by serving others and providing a delicious meal, but I failed to realize the heart of the matter. As I was reading Proverbs 17, God answered my prayer through His Word “Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife.” (Proverbs 17:1). I still enjoy cooking big meals and being a hostess, but God’s word reminds me that the most important thing is to share God’s love with others rather than lots of food or a spotless house.

Another area that I tried to build my own house was by sharing every word of wisdom that I learned from God with my husband. At times, I thought he should hear it, learn from it and grown through it as I did. The beginning of Proverbs started off with a dry morsel with quietness is better than a house full of feasting with strife and it ended with “he who has knowledge spares his words, and a man of understanding is of a calm spirit. Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; when he shuts his lips, he is considered perspective.” (Proverbs 17:27-28). Again, it is not to go to another extreme and not share with our spouse but it is wise to ask the Lord and wait for Him to say what we should share and what we should not share.  When the Lord does say to speak,  I am reminded to pray asking the Lord for the words to speak and for my husband’s heart to hear and receive what I am going to share.

As you probably guessed, I could fill many posts with how I have chosen to build my house rather than be still and see God build my house. Many times I thought I was in the “right” because I sought God on the big things and small but I failed to seek him on everything. The areas I have neglected many times to pray for, ask and listen to were: (1) how many camping trips to go on and where; (2) how many times could we go to the children’s’ museum, zoo or other fun things in a week; (3) a Christian book I wanted to buy; (4) how to go about getting the house cleaned; (5) whether I should speak or not (even if what I was going to say was spiritual or not); (6) what to cook for dinner and this list too could go on and on with ordinary, everyday things. Praise God that He is our “Homemaker” and that He will give us wisdom if we ask. In fact, He is the one who builds. Psalm 127 says “GOD BUILDS.” If we try to keep building our house with our “good ways”, it will be fruitless, ineffectual and without any real value.  We will feel hopeless and depressed because all our “good efforts” were in vain.

These every day decisions from what to cook for dinner, what to read, or whether to go camping or not may seem rather trivial but they are not trivial because they take up how we spend our time and money and many times how we are relating to God and our family. There have been times that I asked the Lord what to make for dinner, and He brought something to my mind right away whereas prior to asking I was wasting time try to think, plan or decide to go out and spend money. There have been times that as a husband and wife we asked about a small purchase like a book or whether to go camping or not, and when the Lord answered we both were at peace and unity. Other times, we tried to do these things without asking and listening. If God does the building, we just want to be in a place of listening and obeying His ways.

Sometimes we listen to our own good ways but other times we are pulled in what seems a million directions from what we read or what we heard others says. Galatians 1:10 “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Jesus Christ.” I cannot think of any other area where there is more advice than the area of Mothering. There are all these “debates” over: (1) cry it out v. not cry it out; (2) sleep with parent v. sleep by crib; (3) vegetables v. fruit for first meals; (4) make something child will eat v. require him to eat what is on plate; (5) comfort over all hurts v. toughen him up. This list could go on for pages. This area needs much discernment in seeking what the Lord has for your child. Of course, I have my own opinions just like anyone else but God knows what is best for your child. My encouragement is to seek God, listen to Him and He will direct your steps and tell you what to do. It is important to hear His heart and not come up with reasons why we chose what we did.  A mentor at church instead of telling me what to do about things would say “God gave Nehemiah to you and your husband and not to anyone else.” This taught me that we were the ones to train, guide and teach Nehemiah by seeking the Lord for those answers on behalf of Nehemiah. It would be vain to try to build my house by building up reasons, arguments and answers to things from my perspective or others perspective no matter how godly or good it sounds.

I am not an expert on all the mysterious ways of how God builds a house but I do take it at His Word that He is the one who builds. Ask him how and what He wants to build.  My place is to ask, wait, listen and be obedient to Him as His worker and servant in this building of our family.  God has used many ways to speak to me through His Word, fellow Christians, books, situations, employers, friends but it is important that we test all against His Word. Next time, I hope God willing to write about a couple of more things about vanity including (1) Godly v. Ungodly wisdom (testing what we hear); (2) building on the rock and (3) the place of praise/worship and gratitude in God building our house.

Verses to Read

Psalm 127

Proverbs 17

Galatians 1

Questions to think about:

1.  Where have you been a pleaser of men rather than God?
2. How do I tell the difference between Godly v. Ungodly wisdom (even if it sounds and looks good)?
3. What is the place of praise and worship in the home?

God will direct your steps and He will build your house. May you be encouraged that you are not meant to carry all the burdens you carry. My prayer is that you trust Him.

Letting Go and Letting God Build My House

Letting Go and Lettting God Build My House

Introduction

My computer decided to make updates without warning me that it was going to shut off and thus the first blog entry was not saved or published. At first, I was discouraged because I spent an hour writing but then realized two things in the meantime. First, I started writing the blog without truly seeking God and spending time really listening to Him as to what He desired. Many times I say quick prayers but then just want to get started. I do this with Mothering too at times instead of listening to the Lord and seeing Him order my steps. This rewrite gave me another opportunity to seek the Lord and His will.  Second, just before my computer made updates and shut itself off, my son heard a garbage truck outside our house. He wanted me to pull up the shades so he could see the garbage truck.  As we looked out the window, the sanitation engineer saw Nehemiah and gave him the biggest wave and smile. Nehemiah’s little hand raised, and he returned the friendly hello. The man waved again as the truck headed off down the street. This experience showed me once again how being a Mommy is about dying to my own desires, wishes and experiencing the joy of seeing joy in every day moments through my child.

Of course getting up from writing to see a  garbage truck is a small way of dying to self but it reminded me of a story that I recently read in “3 Things Kids Need The Most” by Fred A. Hartley III. The story was about a woman whose face was scarred severely in a fire. She was badly disfigured. The daughter was embarrassed by her mother and she refused to be seen in public with her mother. She also would not bring her friends home to play. She would not give her mother affection, and she also made cruel remarks to her mother constantly.  After the daughter went to college, the mother lay sick and dying in a hospital bed. The father told the child to come home to say goodbye to her mother.  Before the daughter entered the hospital, the father met the daughter and told her it was time she knew something about the mother. The father said “All these years she has made me promise not to tell you the truth about her scars. Now I think you need to know. When you were only six months old, our house caught on fire. You are so pretty, and you look just like your Mother once did. She could not bear the thought of losing you. Willing to lay down her life for yours, she broke through the arms of the firefighters, entered the burning house and rescued you. Tears coursed down the melting skin of her face as she emerged from that raging inferno severely burned and forever disfigured. However, your mother was overjoyed that you were safe and unharmed. Maybe now you can understand why she did not want you growing up feeling guilty every time you looked into her marred face.”  The daughter ran to her Mother and said “Mother, I am so sorry! Can you ever forgive me? I never knew how much you suffered for me. I am so ashamed.”  The Mother had waited patiently for over twenty years for her daughter’s love and with a smile the Mother said “Honey, I have already forgiven you.”(3 Things Kids Need Most,pg. 164-166).

This story of course brought tears to my eyes knowing that I have a heavenly Father like that. Our Lord Jesus left the comforts of heaven and laid down his life for you and me. He too was disfigured and marred as he was severely wounded and beaten for our sins. He chose to lay down his life for the joy set before Him of knowing that He would save us and provide a way of restoring our relationship with Himself. Without him, love would not be possible. Although we may be like that little demanding daughter who does not want anything to do with Jesus, He is patient. At the Cross, He has already forgiven everything we have ever done. He is waiting for all of us to return to him and He is waiting for you to hear “You are forgiven child.”

Therefore, God is the ultimate homemaker. He will teach us how to lay down our lives for our families and how to receive them as a blessing. His presence gives a joy and strength in the midst of difficulties and frustrations. God calls children “ a gift and a reward.” He calls us parents blessed to have children. I wonder how many of us parents don’t feel blessed or we don’t always see our children as a gift or a reward because we are trying to build our own house with our own ideas and ways. I remember that the Lord calls children a reward, a gift and a blessing but many times I fail to remember that the verses on children being a reward are after the verses on the Lord building the house. The verse I will be focusing for Letting Go and Letting God build the house is Psalm 127:1-5.

Psalm 127:1-5 Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.
 ²It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors (Sorrows);
 For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep. ³Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
 The fruit of the womb is a reward. ⁴Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
 So are the children of one's youth. ⁵How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
 They will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.
            The next entry I write will start to explore what it means for the Lord to build our house. Lord, this morning I mumbled to myself that I needed prayer and then I heard my two year old immediately pray “Lord Jesus, help my Mommy.” You are my strength and an ever present help in time of trouble. May you open our hearts to hear You. The prayer I hear my son pray most often is “Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay.” Thank you for being so humble and patient with us. May we come to know you more and more and may we learn to humble ourselves as Mothers and Wives and to lay down our lives for You and the precious people you put in our life.

Questions to think about before next post:

1.      How am I trying in vain to be a homemaker and build my house without the Lord? What do I need to let go of?

2.      What does the Lord mean “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it?

Be encouraged, God has forgiven us. His Joy is our strength.