Wherever there are people whose hearts are not fretful or anxious or in a resentful frenzy, but instead have a tranquility of heart and a kind of peaceful abandon in which they take thought for other's concerns instead of being all wound up in their own—wherever there are people like that, the world sits up and takes notice. And rightly so because in all likelihood something out of this world is at work there, something that people everywhere are hungry for—even if they are not sure what it is. The world is full of anxious people: students anxious about whether people will laugh at their new shoes, about getting good grades, about giving a book report in front of the class; adults anxious about impressing the boss, losing a client, finishing a report on time, getting out of a foolish investment, a strange pain in the chest. From time to time there settles over everyone that dark, grey, heavy blanket of depressing anxiety that in the moment makes everything look dark and seems impossible to throw off. The experience is so common, that those who live in peace and freedom and joy shine like stars in the darkness. Those who have found the way to obey Jesus' command, "Be anxious for nothing" . . . these are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. They bring savor and sunshine to places where the creeping grey fog of anxiety has made everything tasteless and dark.
Psalm 127:1-2 "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 vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved in his sleep."
I think the main point of these three verses is: "Don't eat the bread of anxious toil." It means just the same thing Jesus meant when he said, "Don't be anxious about what you shall eat." When we grow up we must all work for our bread. And we can either work nervously, worrying about what men will think of us—and so eat the bread of anxious toil. Or we can work with serenity in our hearts, as serving Christ and not men—and so eat the bread of peace. God's will for his children, indeed the sign of whether we are children or not, is that we not eat the bread of anxious toil.
God does not lay down specific rules for how early we rise for work and how late we knock off at night. But he does lay down this principle for his beloved: Don't rise early and go late to rest out of anxiety, out of fear and fretfulness. If the joy of fruitful labor lures you to work 12 hours a day, so be it. But take heed lest you are really deceiving yourself, and in fact are being driven by anxiety, or by her twin sister, selfish-ambition. Christians will work hard, but they will work more for the joy of all the good their work can bring to others than they will out of fear at what men will think if they fail.
-John Piper
ai ya i was intending to study till like 2am. haha ok maybe i study till 1.30am? hahaha.
