Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guards keep watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives sleep to his beloved. Psalm 127:1-2
John Calvin, one of the fathers of the Reformation, suggests that we translate Psalm 127 vs. 2b as "God will give in sleeping." Calvin's more literal translation recalls the story of creation: God begins the creation not in the morning (with a cup of coffee) but at night, when many of us are nodding off to sleep. "And there was evening and there was morning, the first day" (Gen. 1:5b). As we slept, God gave the gift of the creation.
A parent once told me that he viewed raising children as something analogous to "building a human being" -- our three year old, Iris, would take mighty exception to that notion, as would most adolescents I've known. And there's something godlike in both adolescents and toddlers -- perhaps they're reminding us that they are created in the image of God, infinitely more mysterious than the works of our hands! Not very long ago, a president boasted that we were creating a "new world order" -- one that quickly fell apart.
If we overstate the fruits of our labor, those well-intentioned works can come to be like the psalmist's "bread of anxious toil" -- bread produced and consumed in a state of constant anxiety.
Okay, so our works may be inadequate, profoundly flawed. Are we to give up our labor? Forsake parenting? Where would that leave us? Should we sit around like "blocks of wood" (Calvin)? Should we just roll back on our spiritual recliner and wait for God? Not exactly. Instead, the psalmist would have us remember God's activity, God's faithful presence in our labors: "O prosper the work of our hands, O prosper the work of our hands" (Psalm 90:17b). This "prospering" comes from God. Our hands may be busy, but not with anxiety or embittered labor, but with something like the quiet but calm spirit of a gardener, who works in the soil but whose heart rejoices in something magnificently beyond his labors.
As I look out the window, I see our lilies. Jesus would be proud of me since I am "considering the lilies" -- albeit, these lilies are not of the field, but of our border. Even so, as I consider them, I notice their growth. Thick spikes of green, their tops peeling away for the central stem which pushes upwards. Awe is one way of describing how I feel when I see their seemingly magical growth.
And yet, I also think of the labor associated with these plants. Each year, around this time, we find our gloves for the work in the garage, stiff with the mud of last year's labor. We pull on old jeans, holes in the knee, ready for close-to-earth labor. We turn the soil; pull away the dead branches from last fall; add compost; cover the ground with a new level of wood chips. Almost always, I find this work feels strangely like rest, like prayer almost, but prayer of the most physical kind. When I smell of the earth, feel my fingers pulling away unwanted weeds, it is almost like performing surgery on the body of the soil -- all so the flowers, the peonies, the clematis, the rose bush can grow more or less unfettered.
At the end of the day, I enjoy a kind of satisfaction. I have put my hands to work. And yes, truth be told, I admire the work of my hands. But I didn't work so much to turn the soil, but to make an opening for something even more magnificent than the dirt beneath my fingernails could produce: the blossom of the flowers.
While I may turn the soil, God creates the immeasurable majesty, the glorious ease, and the delicate mystery of the blossom:
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. Matthew 6:28
What might be the wisdom in this? Perhaps it is to daily turn the soil of your soul with the song thanksgiving; give thanks for your daily bread; do not be anxious but hope in God; go to your daily labors with the peace of God, trusting that God will prosper the work of your hands.
And, finally, each morning, before you start the day, pray and watch -- watch because the Lord promises to give as we sleep, while we dream dreams of ourselves. . . .