I was taught growing up the importance of hard work and being diligent in my responsibilities. I am grateful for these lessons and they have served me very well in life and work. But if we aren’t careful, those lessons about hard work can become misleading. Our culture likes to teach that you can do anything you put your mind to and work hard to accomplish. It sounds wonderful and has inspired countless individuals to achieve great things. But it is not what God has taught in his Word.
In Psalm 127 the psalmist declares some counter cultural ideas when he says, “Unless the Lord builds the house; those who build it labor in vain.” This flies in the face of the inspirational memes I read on my social media pages. But the reality is it is a truly freeing and peace giving message. The world tries to inspire us with try hard and work hard and you can achieve your dreams; but when you don’t, it’s your fault, try harder. The message of God is you cannot do anything on your own, but God will do the good things for you and then give you the reward for a job well done. So rather than diligently doing things that will ultimately fail because they are done by our own strength and wisdom, let’s diligently trust God to do the work and pursue his ways and his grace.
