“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’ And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:1-9
When men gathered and plotted as us and we, they separated from intimacy with their God to become they. What started as a spark of innate ambition ignited into fiery independence from the God who had made them. They planned their methods and plotted to be famous, united against the explicit instruction from the Lord to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” The Lord will not stand for rebellion, and starting by confusing their speech, confounded their grand plans. (Genesis 1:28)
Pursuing our own plans and depending on our own understanding apart from God never works out well. Any time we dream and manipulate and manage apart from God, we labor in vain and bear the consequences. Yet, when we commit our work to the Lord, following His commands and employing His wisdom, we can be sure our work is not in vain. Which will it be? (Psalm 127:1; Proverbs 16:1-3; 1 Corinthians 15:58)
Are there areas in our lives we know God’s clear instructions, yet choose to ignore them in pursuit of preferred entertainment, career ambitions, flesh passions? How often do we make decisions peppered with and driven by “I” instead of conferring with “Him”? Where do I need to turn from self determination to ensure my desires and dreams accommodate the Lord? Will I seek, then obey, His direction?
“Here I raise my Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.” ~Robert Robinson (1758)
Lord, may my planning and building align with Your word and honor Your Name.
As the rain and snow 