Not in Vain.

Last week found me at the lake. I told you it would. Lakes are relaxing places. At different times throughout the week I asked myself “Is this reality?” and came to the conclusion that rest received from the Lord is sweet for the weary—for those who have been hard at work in the harvest fields, if you know what I mean…

Have you ever been in an airplane and flown over those lakes that are surrounded by mountains and thought, “Goodness that must be beautiful?” Well let me put your mind to rest: Everything you always thought is true.

My brother and I on our way to the Lake on the Columbia River!

The Lake at dusk.

The view off our dock!

I sat on the boat and read a lot of Les Miserables. Because the movie is coming out this fall, you know.

Boys love to tube!!!

Boys wearing my running jacket (and headlight) and petting the fishes they caught for dinner.

Putting small children in grocery bags.

If the boat is on the water, I want to be on the boat. Needless to say I felt like I was still on the boat even when I was on solid ground. What an unnerving sensation. But totally worth it. Here with the ladies of the trip.

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My devotions have been in I Kings lately. All of those Old Testament books put me in a mood that I think I love. Maybe I feel more like the Queen of Sheba when I read them. Maybe I love that I see God do huge things. Maybe the lessons learned in those books are massive. Maybe all of the above are true.

Anyway. The story at the beginning of I Kings is about Solomon finally getting to do what his dad, David, had wanted to do all along: Build the temple. David had a heart after God, and God loved that David had a heart to build the Lord a house, but that was not what God wanted done. Solomon was going to be the one to do it.
And he did it.
That’s where we find ourselves in I Kings chapter 8. The temple has been built and Solomon is awed. Praising the Lord. He says this in verse 27, “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less the temple I have built!”
I think I am starting to grasp what Solomon is talking about. There are all of these grandiose ambitions in my heart to do any number of sweet things for the Lord. For his glory; to see others come to know him; for the lost to get found. And I can put forth crazy amounts of effort, energies. Like David, my heart can be in it, but what if maybe God has some other work he wants me to do? What if, if I am self-guided rather than God-guided, even the “good things” I am doing will produce naught?

Verse 27 shows that Solomon knew a truth that I just learned this week: God is too big to be contained by things made by human hands. In Acts 17 it even says “And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” (verse 25).
God does not need us to help him, as if we can give him something he doesn’t already possess. But God invites us to join him in his work. And these works are numerous; he is moving all over this planet, promoting his plans, conforming all things to his will, seeking and saving the lost.
He asks us to be on his team, to be his ambassadors.
But I think about the work I feel called by him to do and it can seem overwhelming. To view the needs of the world is to find yourself small and inadequate. My response to that can be like David’s: Really eager. I want to get out there and make a difference and move things along fast. NO TIME TO WASTE!!! But what if God is not in it? What if he is not the Energy that gets me moving fast? Then what?

While building the temple was not what God wanted David to do, I find immense comfort that God loved the willingness David had to DO SOMETHING FOR GOD (I Kings 8:17-19). It’s kind of like a safety net, knowing that does see all motives and energies put forth and blesses the righteous pursuits, even if God stalls the outcomes. Isn’t that something only a really good God would do?!

So Solomon knew that God is too big to be contained by things we make for him. “The highest heaven cannot contain you,” he says. “How much less the temple I have built!”
I draw 2 conclusions out of this:

1.       To build something for the Lord, I have to have a humble spirit and realize that God is bigger than all of my efforts. I am kind of like the three-year old who wants to help daddy “Split Wood.” In reality I am picking up twigs off the ground, not chopping down trees. He doesn’t need my “help,” but he loves my willing heart. I have to recognize that only God ordained things will produce God ordained results. Which leads me to my second point.

2.       God, the eternal one, can only exist in what he creates, i.e. Things with an eternal nature, things that are big enough to contain him (like eternity). He is too big for the temporal.

Doesn’t that make sense? Why else would Solomon himself say in Psalm 127:1 “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain”? Because all of our efforts can never be enough. God only build things that conform to HIS will. Remember, we are just picking up sticks, not felling logs.

So I find myself praying about all of the said things I want to do for the Lord, coming to him with a spirit of humility, admitting that my work is not big enough for him, but praying that he would then do the building. Offering up a humble heart for him to say to me, “I love that you want to do this for me, but this is not what I want you do for me. I can use you better elsewhere.” And then letting him change the course of my efforts.  All I can ask is that he will use me to communicate his “big-ness” to other fellow stick collectors and that we can live a life acknowledging that he does not dwell in temples built by human hands. He dwells where he chooses.

I do not want to labor in vain, Wolifes. I want him to build the house.