Effect of selfish labor is temporary, so go for an eternal perspective

This Saturday finds us entering the three-day Labor Day weekend. The extraordinarily cool weather we have been blessed with will certainly drive families outside and increase interstate travel.

Labor is a dominant theme for the majority of our lives.

The time spent away from our families for labor is easier to endure when the emotional return investment is that our labor is making a difference. There is nothing more frustrating than working so hard just to find out it was all for nothing.

The Psalmist reminds readers of the vanity of selfish labor. He writes, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain." (Psalm 127:1)

Two words come to mind from this Psalm. They are priority and provision. The house can represent your family, your life, your business, anything that is of great importance and you would hope would be passed on as a legacy long after you have breathed your last. The poet has by divine inspiration observed that unless the first priority for life, for family for anything else is not the Lord, his commands and his statutes, then it is all pointless. Not that those who do not walk with the Lord cannot make a positive impact. After all, it rains on the just and unjust alike. But the effect is temporary.

Their investment was in the temporary while the one whose first priority is the Lord has an eternal perspective. His building is building toward the eternal. His labor is laboring toward the eternal.

For the second word, provision: We don't have much use for a city watchman today. The closest relative would be the police officer who patrols the late night hours. Watchmen stood guard against marauders who would destroy slumbering cities. They would rely upon their keen eyesight to spot the night raiders. They would trust in their strength to remain awake. Yet the nights were always long and the strain great. The warning in these words says that unless the watchman trusts in the Lord while doing his job to the best of his ability he spends the energy fruitlessly. God sees what the watchman never will and provides what the watchman never can.

Make the Lord your priority this Labor Day and trust in his provision.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father, minister and writer. Read more from him at www.robhurtgen.wordpress.com.