How Can We Accomplish That?

There was a time at one place I worked that as an electronics technician I sent an email to a salesman about how to accomplish what a customer had requested. Since it was urgent I get my work done and get the project sent to the customer and had received no response for a couple of days I resent the email and copied the head of sales and the head of hardware engineering because it was necessary to elevate the concern due to time constraints. In a day or so a meeting was called. The president of the company, the head of sales, the head of hardware engineering, the head of software engineering, the head of my department, the salesman and myself were all present. After the meeting started with the president presiding various topics were discussed for 45 minutes, none directed to me, none related to the purpose of my original email. About this time the president motioned quietly that I could go back to work. Being the first time I had a moment to "participate" in the discussion I requested the need to have my questions answered. It was like none of them knew the purpose for which the meeting was called even though each person in the room had a copy of the email in front of them. Once I asked in less than twenty minutes there were more than half a dozen action items including every department present to complete. Until the attention and understanding of the president of the company was actually engaged nothing was going to be accomplished.

There are just a very few activities present in one way or another throughout our lives, a place to sleep, work, and for many children. it is interesting that the few (in comparison attributed to Solomon - 3000) proverbs in the book of Proverbs many center around specific attributes, the righteous, the wicked, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, abomination, precious stones, the strange woman, the froward , the naive. Those about cover 80% of 31 chapters. So for Solomon to write a brief succinct psalm shorter than any one chapter division of the Proverbs is worth nothing the few specifics.

A song of degrees, or Psalm of Solomon.

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the keeper watcheth in vain.

Psalms 127:1 GNV

Jesus specifically tells His disciples many hundreds of years later this eternal truth, the Lord knows what we have need of before we ask, even so He wants us to ask. He wants us to want Him to be engaged with our needs.

Then work is spoken of and what is said,

It is in vain for you to rise early, and to lie down late, and eat the bread of sorrow: but he wil surely give rest to his beloved.

Psalms 127:2 GNV

In this present day where lights are on 24 hours a day and people in the USA are often expected to work 12 to 15 hours a day we say "you've got that right". But when this was first written the oil used to keep lamps lit for staying up late and rising early really cut into any profit made let alone sleep deprivation. The problem universal and still true. The only difference is what work is expected to be accomplished.

The same is true for raising children. Unless the Lord is engaged in building our house, watching for our safety, part of our work, our sleep, or raising our children our labor is in vain. Someone might say that I raised my children according to the Word of God, the question still comes, are you raising them or is the Lord engaged with you in raising them. Not many proverbs, just a few focused thoughts on letting the Lord have His part in our lives.