Wisdom on Work - Finding Balance (Part 2)

Putting a Psalm in Context

To recap from the first part of this series on how we work, why we work and what it looks like to keep Jesus truly first, let’s re-read Psalm 127, but this time in its entirety.

Verses 1-5 say:

Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it;

Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.

How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

The heart of this psalm is all about humility and trust, but its warning about the futility of over-working comes just before “behold, children are a gift of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward.” I don’t think that is a coincidence! God’s Word is telling us to remember that our kids are a gift from Him—to treasure them and prioritize them. It’s reminding us to be there for them and not be so preoccupied or removed from them because we’ve made work, money and our own success first in our lives for all practical purposes. Kids grow up so fast, so this beautiful song warns us not to squander those precious growing up years by being consumed by our work.

This isn’t to say that there are never seasons where we are called to work extra, but this simply cannot be our way of life. I remember when Tim first started teaching at our local high school and how many hours it required for him to write all those lesson plans for the various different math classes he taught. He put in like 80+ hour weeks, but our children were small and he did not want to be away from them or me so much. So he sacrificed sleep to make it work. He would come home for dinner and to play with our kids for a couple hours and help get them to bed and then go back to school at like 9:30 at night to keep preparing for the next day or to keep grading tests etc. He’d often be there until 2 in the morning and then get up at like 6AM to be there and awake enough to teach the next day. He did this for several years because he is a dedicated teacher who also cherished his family. God sustained him and gave him the strength and heart to do what he needed to do. He sustained the kids and me, too.

Considering Authorship Makes a Difference

So, back to Psalm 127. Another interesting thing about this psalm is that it is a song penned by King Solomon. When I understood that, it made me take notice of some things I hadn’t seen before and caused me to dig into Solomon’s famous Book of Ecclesiastes. Firstly, I realized that King Solomon repeats the concept that things done in one’s own strength and striving by one’s own will are said to be done in vain three times. Repetition is important to pay attention to in the Bible and the parallelism of the first lines of this poem or song emphasize the foolishness or vanity of striving to build the house or guard the city or work so hard that you lose sleep, especially as a lifestyle.

These themes and the repetition of the words “vanity, vanity” are so similar to the Book of Ecclesiastes that it really makes me wonder if this psalm was written after the king’s numerous experiments to find satisfaction in meaning that he records there. This psalm is almost a mini summary of that whole book and carries the tone of a wise, older man who has learned life’s lesson’s the hard way. But it also has such a beautiful tone of humility, surrender and trust to it, which I just don’t think Solomon had until later in life. I think he penned this psalm of wisdom either during or sometime after his great sermon of Ecclesiastes where he explores all the ways that life is but a vapor “under the sun” versus finding life’s true meaning when we “remember our creator in the days of our youth” (Eccl. 12:1).

In Part Three of this series, I’ll share the new observations I picked up from the Book of Ecclesiastes as it relates to evaluating how we work and why we work. It won’t be a deep dive analyzing the whole book, but a brief overview of a couple of key sections so we can glean Solomon’s lessons for us that apply to our study of how to work in a way that pleases the Lord.

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Photo Credit: The Maker Jess - A woman holding a wooden sign that says as for me and my family we will photo – Free Art Image on Unsplash