Cities and Sleep

Unless the LORD builds the house,

those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the LORD watches over the city,

the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early

and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil;

for he gives to his beloved sleep.

Psalm 127:1-2

This is one of my favourite Psalms and I think these two verses are among the most supremely comforting and assuring in the whole Bible.

I have a rather intense, perfectionistic personality. I want to do things right and well. It is easy for me to carry this too far into mindless, compulsive anxiety about work and life in general. I want to plan things so that they go just right. I want to make that my plans are carried out well. I feel the need to plot out the steps I take, in order to retain control over my future. This certainly does not honour God.

Our God is the one and only God, the Sovereign God. Everything in our lives is in His hands, and ultimately, it is His will that controls our destinies. And that is why these two verses are so comforting to me. They remind me that for all the time and energy I pour into planning and trying to keep a grip on my future, my effort is futile if I do not let God take control. So God is telling me: "Let me run your life: unless my will operates through your life, everything you do is in vain." I should surrender my life to Him and let Him "build my city" for me. If I think that I have absolute control over my life, and run it according to my finite wisdom and abilities, I'm headed for trouble.

What then is left for me to do? All that I have to do is sleep in peace. Sleep is beautiful, precious rest that God created for us weary, puny beings. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't work late if I have to. Rather it means that if I toil, thinking that late nights of work alone can give me security for the future, I toil in vain. What futility and silliness, when God means for me to be able to rest peacefully with the assurance that my future is safe in His sovereign, perfect will.

These two verses are such a sweet yet incisive indictment of anxiety and futile human efforts to run our own lives. Will we let God build the cities of our future and trust Him to watch over them? Will we accept His gift of dreamless, peaceful sleep? I pray that I will and that you will too.