Unless the Lord Builds the House

I’m sharing a week’s worth of devotionals this week, using the word AUTUMN and choosing a verse that begins with each of those letters.

Here’s where we are so far -
A: Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

Today we’re moving on to the next letter.

U: Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain…. Psalm 127:1

I am not a builder. When it comes to building houses with Lego or Lincoln Logs, my kids know I’m pretty much hopeless. Don’t get me wrong - I will try. But if you want a Lego house with anything more than the most basic structure, I’m not the one to ask. It’s pretty much a given that my efforts will be in vain.

But when my husband builds a Lego house, it looks like a pretty impressive structure - one that any self-respecting Lego person would love to live in! My husband is the one with Lego skills; it comes easily for him. Therefore, the kids will ask him to do the building.

We, as people, can construct things on small scales because we can have some control over that. We can even construct things on a larger scale - like an actual house, that families can live in - because we can operate within the constraints of that size and scale.

But what about the spiritual level? We can’t see or know what’s going on in the spiritual realm. We didn’t create the spiritual level, we can’t control anything that goes on in that realm like we can in the physical realm.

So why would we trust spiritual growth and development to anyone but God? He created the spiritual level. He knows and understands it. He put us on the earth at this particular time in history for a reason.

As I work to nurture my children’s spiritual development, it’s not something I can do on my own. I can know of the spiritual realm, I can know the battles that go on, but I cannot control the spiritual realm. Only God can. I want my children to continue to develop their relationship with God, and I can lead and point the way, but that relationship is between the child and God.

As parents, we have to trust God to build the spiritual house that our children will live in, because we cannot construct that for them. We can lay the foundation, provide support for the relationship in terms of sharing our relationship with God, but we cannot force them to have their own relationship with God. We have to leave that between them and God.

I’m grateful that our children made decisions for God at an early age, but I know there will be times where they will need to revisit their decision and continue to see that relationship grow and develop. I have to trust that as they pursue that relationship with God, He will continue to remain faithful in building their spiritual house.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to work on putting these posts together for Autumn Inspiration Week. Feel free to stop by and read some of the posts by some other fabulous bloggers.

Other posts in this series:
Autumn Inspiration Week
A: Ask, Seek, Knock
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