November 10, 2023

Building Your Life on the Right Priorities

By Skip Heitzig

It's no revelation that America is a nation founded on hard work. We reward hard work: typically, you will be elevated in your career, make more income, and be able to provide better for your family. We call all of that success, the American dream.

In fact, even Scripture commends hard work. "Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ" (Colossians 3:23-24). The idea of working is something God instilled within us from creation, and it is very good. But even something good can become something bad if it's taken too far.

Work is good. Being a workaholic is not good. The fact is, work can become an idol, something good that gets elevated to an ultimate position. So a good thing can become a bad thing if it keeps you from the best thing.

Psalm 127 contrasts a life built on vanity versus a life built on value. You can build projects for temporal benefit, or you can build people for spiritual benefit. "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. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep" (vv. 1-2).

King Solomon, the writer of Psalm 127, was uniquely qualified to talk about this topic. He was the wisest man on Earth, but he failed to apply that wisdom. He spoke from experience as one who violated the very principles of wisdom God gave him. Solomon was a classic overachiever, or workaholic.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, he wrote about his life in detail, and over thirty times, he used the word vain or vanity or vanities, meaning emptiness or meaninglessness. In the first two verses of Psalm 127, he used the word vain three times.

As soon as Solomon became king, he started a massive building project. He employed about 300,000 people to build the temple of the Lord, and it took seven and a half years to build it. By the way, he spent thirteen years building his own house. So Psalm 127:1 could be about either the house of the Lord or his own personal house.

In Ecclesiastes 2, he boasted, "I made, I built, I planted, I acquired, I gathered" (see vv. 4-8). And then he lamented, "I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun" (v. 11). He ended up hating all his labor and even life itself (see vv. 17-18).

Solomon had a drive to work, build, acquire, and create. But all the while he was doing that, his relational life was crumbling. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and he wasn't good at relationships with any of them. His spiritual life also crumbled; the Bible says all those women eventually turned his heart from the Lord (see 1 Kings 11:4).

Even in ministry, you can be working for the Lord and not with Him. If you always live with "the pedal to the metal," something in life has to give, and it's usually the relationships that were once a priority to you. When Jesus spoke to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, He commended them for being hardworking and industrious, "nevertheless," he said, "I have this against you, that you have left your first love" (v. 4).

So let me ask you: How are things on the home front? By that, I mean, how are the people and relationships in your home? How is your relationship with God? If things are out of whack, your relationships are deteriorating, and your walk with God is not a priority, I pray you would return to your first love today, use your work to bring glory to God, and fill your life with value and meaningful relationships.

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