Surprise!

The 28-Day Blogging Challenge list of writing prompts leaves Fridays open for whatever surprise word-prompt Kate Motaung offers for Five Minute Friday.

And just as I was finishing the last post, my email came through from Kate, with this word prompt:

“Build”!

I almost laughed out loud.

So I’d already written on the prompt before I knew what it was!

But I must add now that the first thought that popped into my head on seeing that word was “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psa 127:1 NJKV)

Isn’t that the essence of what God was telling David, when this grateful human king wanted to build God a house?

When I looked up the verse that came to mind, to see if I had it right in my memory bank, I found it interesting, and rather entertaining, that the first words in it, preceding what I quoted above, are “A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.”

So this psalm is “a song of/by Solomon. How very fitting to follow the last post, because what I didn’t mention in it was that God told David that He would give the go-ahead for a temple to be built a for His name and His presence in Jerusalem, but David, the man of war and bloodshed would not be the one to build it. David’s son (Solomon, the man of peace, ruler in peacetime), would be the appropriate overseer of the work (2 Sa 7:12-16; 1 Ch 22:7-10).

I also found it interesting that when I used an online concordance to check the reference by entering the word “build,” the first verse that came up was about the human endeavor to build the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:4). They built it, but in vain, because God totally confounded the purpose for which they built it.

What “house” are you building? Who’s really building it, you or God, through you? Is your building going to fulfill its intended purpose, or is the laborer laboring in vain?

Some good questions to consider, regarding our human plans and endeavors. Some good questions to ask myself.

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For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.