Psalm 127:2 NIV
In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for
food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Are You A Hard Worker?
The other day I was sitting in the
sanctuary praying and I realized I was dreaming…literally REM dreaming. I shook my head, closed my eyes again to pray
and fell asleep once more with vivid dreaming.
A third time I started praying and tried a different tact, trying to
pray for each person who came to my mind.
This worked for a while until I got distracted and started thinking
about what I had to do. I did not have
what you might call a very spiritual experience. For a while, the “power nap” was a popular
concept. Who doesn’t like the idea of in
the middle of a work-day taking a break to snooze? Doctors have recommended the practice but how
many managers and supervisors want their workers sleeping on the job. The Bible
doesn’t seem to be an enthusiastic supporter of naps! How long will you lie there, you
sluggard? When will you get up from your
sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest — and poverty will come on you like a
bandit and scarcity like an armed man. (Proverbs 6:9-11 NIV) The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he
will not even bring it back to his mouth! (Proverbs 19:24 NIV) That sounds like a power nap in the
cafeteria. I wonder how well that would
go over at most work places!
Probably you are a hard worker and would
never consider yourself a sluggard. You
get up early and start your day off with a cup of coffee or a shower to charge
your batteries and then off you go. Maybe
you don’t like getting up and “getting off” but you do it because it is right
and necessary. There are plenty in the
world who consider work the most noble of ventures and success the goal in
life. The Bible isn’t exactly against
hard work and in fact it is celebrated in many places. Yet there is a passage in the Psalms that provides
critical insight into our work habits and God’s view of how we use our time.
Unless the Lord builds the house, its
builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord
watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. (Psalm 127:1 NIV)
The thought that all one’s effort could be a waste of time is rather
disconcerting! Who hasn’t felt though at
one point or another like that? What
good is it to try so hard at something when it is bound to fail anyway or it
won’t be appreciated or it won’t matter in the long run? This verse creates an immense line of
demarcation between two categories of work.
The first is work that is contained completely within the realm of human
effort. Whether it is the building of a
great housing complex or the stacking of vegetables on the kitchen counter, it
either is done in God or it isn’t. If it
isn’t, then it is work done in vain. The
term translated “vain” does not imply that it was done out of a desire to puff
up oneself but rather that it was empty of purpose, without value. Jesus expressed this idea in vivid fashion
when He warned against storing up for yourself treasures on earth that moths
and rust can wreck and thieves just take.
Stored up earthly treasures are vain in this sense, they are without reason
or purpose. They are “empty”
possessions. The same can be true of
work. If God is not behind it and not in
agreement with it, the work, whatever it might be gets gobbled up and becomes
worthless. This of course is not logical
and perhaps not even reasonable to most.
Why does every work have to go through God? Were computers developed by those holding
prayer meetings? Did the ones who put
together the internet have their Bibles open as they worked? Plenty of great things have been done by
those who did not care one bit what God thought of their efforts.
Yet we do know that the marvelous
invention of the phonograph became obsolete when eight tracks were
developed. Cell phones make landlines a
dinosaur and whoever thought of rotary dialing is not celebrated today. Those who worked so hard on their movies find
that they are eventually forgotten and ignored.
Does anyone care who invented the wheel or started the first fire by
rubbing sticks together? All work,
regardless of how great we might think it is today will be buried in time and
no one will give it a funeral. Only God
can keep alive the memory of work that is done and make it as meaningful and
important today as it was ten thousand years ago. However, we see work started and completed
without any thought given whatsoever to how God views its value or thinks of
the effort. Solomon used the term
“vanity of vanities” to describe so much of how we spend our time. At the top of his list of vanity of vanities
would be our attempt to get done what is not inspired or empowered by God.
If it seems from these comments that God
is not in favor of hard work or creative thought, but that is not the
case. Our Lord wants us to work. It must though be done in the right way and
for the right reasons. Whatever
you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV) We see work assigned by God all through the
Bible. Whether it was Bezalel designing
and putting together the Ark of the Covenant or Paul sewing tents, work is
honored by God. Of course you can make a
good living doing all sorts of work and even be celebrated by your supervisors
or the public at large for what you have done but it will in the end be
forgotten and fall apart if God is not in it.
Our Lord promises you an inheritance that will last as long as He does
if you work for Him. Everything else you
do will be devoured by time and lost.
There is a more practical reason for
doing your work through God. It comes
from the next verse in the Psalm we quoted earlier. In vain you rise early and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat — for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm
127:2 NIV) This verse has a wealth of
insight to it that some translations do not make clear. It is worthless, the verse insists, for us to
get up early and stay up late trying to get things done that God has no
interest in us doing. The Hebrew, which
is translated by some English versions as staying up late toiling for food to
eat more literally describes staying up late and putting off eating the bread
your hard and wearisome work has produced.
This is work generated by worldly cares, by concerns that are produced
in those who are disconnected from God.
The more we work without Christ empowering and inspiring it, the less
pleasure it brings and the more burdensome it becomes.
More than that though is the promise
this verse provides us. The NIV translation
has a footnote in this verse that brings clarity to it. The promise is not that our Lord rewards
those who live in Him with sleep. It is
that He gives to His beloved ones in sleep.
The New American Standard Version translates this phrase, “For He gives
to His beloved even in his sleep.” The
Grammar in this little phrase is tricky but certain. Sleep is a powerful mechanism by which the
Lord pours Himself Into you. There are
instances in Scripture documenting the way God has spoken to His people while
they were sleeping including Jacob in the Old Testament when he was running
from his brother in fear of his life and in the New Testament Joseph who was
engaged to Mary the mother of Jesus providing for him comfort and reassurance
that Mary had done no wrong in becoming pregnant. And then there is the example
of Daniel who as he slept was shown by the Lord the content of King
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and how to interpret it. God wants His people to sleep because of what
He can do in them when they sleep. It is
not just that we physically need to rest.
In sleep God can get at the places where sin has done its most damage,
in the deep parts of the heart or mind if you will, and comfort us and
encourage us and strengthen us. Just
some sleep and the pain we felt before over a loss, a tragic event, an insult
or a failure can be healed and we feel it when we awaken.
Do not just go to sleep. Prepare yourself for God to work in you when
you sleep. Pray and get ready. Tell God what you think you need before you
fall asleep. Talk to Him about what is
bothering you. Pray with someone else,
if you have that person, just before bed.
Who knows what God might do for you and in you through the praying of
someone who loves you? Sleep is when God
blesses us with some of His greatest comfort and insight. What you could not grasp before you slept,
with Christ working in you as you sleep, it can come to you as easily as
holding a feather in your hand. The
world and all the pressures it can bring to bear upon you can wait a while as
you meet with God in the depths of your heart.
Did you know that you can pray even while you are sleeping? You can but you must quiet your heart in
tender worship beforehand to make it ready to meet with Him there. Try an experiment this week. Just before you go to sleep, read a little
bit of scripture or quote some to yourself and then pray quietly. See what the Holy Spirit does in you as you
rest in Christ.
2 comments:
amazing..... never thought of it that way!!!!!!
Thanks Jayant!
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