Labor of Love
Tuesday (December 23)
Labor of Love
Psalm 127:1
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Think back with me to that pivotal moment in David’s life, recorded in 2 Samuel 7, where David became perplexed by the disparity between his palace and God’s tabernacle and suddenly desired to build a house worthy of God. But although David’s desire to build a palace for God was filled with genuine humility and earnestness for God’s glory, it was also intermixed with a misconception that needed clearing up. So, the LORD came to David and effectively responded, “Listen, young man, I don’t dwell in any house made by human hands—in fact, you couldn’t build a house suitable for Me even if you had all the materials in the entire world to work with. Even if you drained the cosmos of all its resources, and cut down all the timber in every forest, and mined all the gold and precious stones from every cavern, and turned every grain of sand on every seashore to glass and stone, and even if the palace you built for me was a world all its own, it would still fall infinitely short of My glory. No, David, you cannot build Me a house; I am building you a house—that’s why I’m here in the tent outside. Don’t let that crown on your head blind you to that.” Well, that was the gist of God’s message to David, and it seems that David not only took it to heart but also passed it down to his son, Solomon, who reiterated the truth in Psalm 127.
This is the paradox of Christian ministry, isn’t it? If we go out today and expend all our energy building something for ourselves, if we spend our lives building a portfolio or a career or even a family primarily for our own pleasure, we’ve failed. Yet, if we go out today and expend all our energy building something for God, but we come to the end of it and feel proud of ourselves for what we’ve made for Him, we’ve failed in the other direction. To build nothing for God is a waste of a life; but to build something for God under the delusion that He needs our help is no better. Either we do everything for His glory and by His help, or we labor in vain.