Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat- for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
I was reading the other night and this is the passage I came across that really stood out to me. With more reading tonight, I saw some more things I'd like to address here. Refuge is a venture that began with such fervor, prayer, and hope. Right now the project has taken so many detours that many people are frustrated, prayerless, and hopeless. I think I found the reason we ran into some trouble. It lies in the first verse of this passage. Unless God builds something, it will fail. It is in vain. All the work we have been doing lately seems to have been in vain, at least that is how some see it. I feel that we are trying to do too much work ourselves and leaving God out of the work. We worry so much about the permit. This stupid permit holds us up so much. I say let God get our permit for us. Talk to Him about it and let Him tell us what to do. It's His place anyway. Isn't it? Do we realize that it is His place? When we leave it to Him, it will get done. Only on His time too, not ours.
So tonight I was reading a little more and came across the word "refuge" time and time again in the Psalms I was reading. A refuge is a place where God protects His people. How can we be His refuge? We've got to let Him build our refuge and take refuge in it as His people, as God's refugees. That is all we are anyway. Don't take this as me losing hope because I'm not. It's just something to think about. This thing will work, but only if we allow God to do it and make Him the center of it, not ourselves.
On a lighter note, I started some of I Kings today and was reading about the time when Solomon was becoming king and some of his early activities as king. There were a bunch of men who did some bad things to David, so he told Solomon to kind of take them out. So these guys did not follow the ultimatums Solomon gave them, so he told this guy Beneniah to go kill them. I was thinking, is this guy some kind of Bible hitman? If so, that is pretty cool.
I also loved Psalm 115:3. It says, "Our God is in heaven, He does whatever pleases Him."
Yeah, our God is that cool. He truly does what he wants. ha.
1 comment:
Excellent thoughts! I do agree that sometimes we tend to get in our own way and do too much striving toward something instead of turning it over to God and letting Him lead us. I know that Refuge is something we should do...I think that you're onto something, though. Maybe it's time we make regular trips up there not to work on it, but to pray on it!
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