Is God building your house or are you building your own house? Psalm 127:1-2 says,

“Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.”

Think about building a house. It starts with laying a foundation, a strong foundation to hold up and hold together the structure above it. When this scripture says “unless the Lord builds the house”, it is talking about God leading and guiding us in our life’s journey in everything. Often times, we build our own foundation, make our own plans, choose our own way then want God to take over and finish the building process for us. The challenge here is that we don’t know how to properly build a house with a strong foundation that will be able to withstand everything that comes to tear it apart or break it down. Once we realize this, we end up giving God a fragile house with a lot of potential, one with cracks and problems that need to be fixed to make into the greatness it’s supposed to be. And that’s ok because desires to give us His grace,  but the same way some houses need to be torn down to be repaired from the ground up is the same way we are.

God will do it. “It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.” God wants us to put in the work, but He wants us to work smartly and to let him do the tough work. Can we have faith enough to let him be in control so we can rest and be at peace? If we build a strong foundation, and have a healthy spiritual life and relationship with God first and foremost, everything else will fall into place. We should be seeking God about our careers, promotion, investment decisions, health, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, finances… everything, so our work won’t be “in vain” as Psalm 127:2 says. God has all the (right) answers, so why waste our time!? Can we trust God enough to let Him build us up and establish us instead of being led by our own desires and emotions?

We can be confident that if God is leading us and building our houses, He is leading us in victory and while He is leading, He is using us. “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us, the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place (2 Corinthians 2:14 KJV). Walk in your victory!

I know it’s tough, y’all. In the midst of life, daily struggles, the ups and downs, to see God in everything. Just remember that He is always working on our behalf, moving things around for us. We have to believe that God is always faithful and working in our favor, not only when we see Him come through how we want Him to and when we want Him to, but always. I’ll finish with this awesome parable of the farmer sowing seed in Matthew 13:3-8, “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” Let’s plant our seeds on fertile ground with roots that can’t be torn up. When we let God build our house, He’ll give us a joy that gives us a reason to smile even in the toughest, worst times of life.

With love,

Carin