Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Allison. Today's scripture offers us a wiser way of being human as we step into the day.

I want to start today with a question. What if the exhaustion you're feeling right now isn't because you're not doing enough, but because you're carrying

something you were never meant to carry. What if the tiredness in your body isn't a sign that

you need to push harder, but a signal that something in the way you're moving is out of alignment?

Today we're sitting with a short psalm, but it's one of those

passages that if you let it can gently begin to tap on some of the ways you've learned to survive.

Today's scripture is Psalm 127, 1 and 2. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it

labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches 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.

This is both a beautiful and challenging passage.

I love it on one hand, and on another hand, I find it deeply convicting.

The Hebrew word here for vain doesn't just mean pointless.

It carries this sense of emptiness, of almost like vapor.

It's the same word that appears in the commandment against taking God's name in vain.

It describes something that looks substantial on the outside, but is hollow at its core.

And then there are these striking images, building a house, rising early, staying up late,

eating the bread of anxious toil. That phrase, the bread of anxious toil,

is such a psychologically precise description of toiling in a way that is disconnected from our

true selves, from God, and from the person we really want to be. The bread of anxious toil.

Just sit with that metaphor for a moment.

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