“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” | Psalm 127:1a ESV
Above my bedroom sink hangs a simple verse, a strong reminder that God is in charge. Year after year this verse reminds both my husband and I that the Lord builds our home—not us. Day-by-day we take baby steps in trust. Some days are steady. Other’s are not. Many days we walk unfaithfully. But God is faithful. Ever-present. Always there. A sure constant. This verse reminds me of God’s sovereignty. It reminds me that human effort simply can not accomplish anything. God however, and God alone, produces MUCH.
Unless the Lord builds it…
It simply will not be, or be of lasting value. Two months ago, shortly after learning we were expecting after years of not expecting, my thoughts were everywhere but where they needed to be. As I was preparing that morning my mind was busy running the tape of what-ifs and my fingers were frantically googling. I googled silly things. Things like, “can you do anything to help HCG levels rise?”, miscarriage statistics for PCOS (I have PCOS), chances of having a healthy baby, diet—you get the idea. I googled EVERYTHING. And then—when researched answers had little to offer, I looked up and there was this verse.
Unless the Lord builds…
Our baby was in God’s hands, it was as simple as that. There was nothing, NOTHING I could do to weigh the scales to the outcome I wanted. It was a reminder that my hands could do nothing. God, and God alone, was fashioning our little one—not me. The outcome was in God’s hands. Peace came only when I resolved the issue of who really was in control of this new little life. And I wasn’t in control. Not one little bit. Only God was, and only God was in control of not just this life, or my life—but all of life.
Solomon knew this. In Psalm 127 he declared that God and God alone was the builder of the house. He acknowledged that God protected the city, that God bestowed heritage. God is central to the building, the guarding, and the blessing in life. No amount of human effort can manufacture what only God can do.
But we try so hard to do it ourselves don’t we?
All that trying, all that self-effort and work—if it’s in our own power it is powerless. It’s vain. The idea here is wrapped in the word futile. Acknowledging God as sovereign did not manipulate the outcome to be what I wanted it to be with our miracle pregnancy. To be sure—I wanted more than anything to tangibly hold that baby in the here and now, on this side of heaven. God had other plans. God’s other plans—the ones I did not want, did not mean that God stopped being good. I needed another perspective. I needed my eyes to look up.
Unless the Lord builds…
I needed to see Jesus, to be reminded of who He is and who I am not. To be reminded of what He has done. To see what He is doing. To be reminded that His doing is not done. In one of my very favorite books, These Strange Ashes, Elizabeth Elliot writes, “It was a long time before I came to the realization that it is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself. Each separate experience of individual stripping we may learn to accept as a fragment of the suffering Christ bore when He took it all.”
Jesus is acquainted with grief…
This world we live in, this broken-down dysfunctional here and now—will have pain. Christ sees my hurting heart just as He sees yours. He loved that hurting heart so much that He bore pain and died in order to save it, to give it hope. He gets it. He really does. He’s good. We can’t understand just how good He is. He sifts everything through His own hands before they meet ours. He gives of Himself if we look up to see it. He holds us, He keeps us. Trials come, but 1 Peter 1:7 says that our faith is of greater worth than gold…refined by fire. Pain hurts, but pain can also teach and grow our faith. Faith, our faith, is precious to Him. Pain does not mean God is done. Not by a long shot.
Look up. Be reminded that God does the building, God does the guarding, God does the blessing. Wrestling the whys is exhausting, it’s futile work. Unless the Lord builds, we will labor in vain. Heaven will have answers and in the here and now of life, in the hard, God will hold us fast.
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