"He who builds the house..."

Psalm 127
A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
(NKJV)

It's funny (as in "hmmmm" not "ha, ha") how you can read something so many times and still when you come back to it you understand it on a whole different level. It's like, "OK, i got it". Then you see it three years later and it's like, "Whoa! Now that is something else entirely"

I guess in reading this Psalm in the past i had always seen this chapter as two different sections. The first being about God's protection and seeking Him, while the second being about how children are a blessing from God. But the reality is that it is all one Psalm. It's not two different section on two different topics. It's speaking about the family and how it is important. Replace "house" and "city" with "family" and you get the drift. The Psalm goes from having a little bit of meaning to me, to applying almost entirely to my life.
Don't get me wrong, i understood these principles long before reading this chapter this morning. It's just amazing how in reading God's Word you tend to find so many deeper layers and meanings than you realize at first. It's easy to read it and say, "Yeah, OK. I got it". When in reality it goes so much deeper and works on so many levels.