Proverbs 24

"Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house." (verse 27) This verse puzzles me still after thinking about it, so I choose to put it out here to see if anyone else has any different thoughts. So, I'm puzzled and I start by eliminating what this is NOT saying... that work comes before family and home. It couldn't be this because it would contradict interpretations of other places in scripture. So then it must be that as we are also told elsewhere, that we are given a job to do each day. That job is ordained by the Lord and given only to us. Even though we may not know the divine plan for that job, we are still to obey. Also, it seems that God is trying to make us aware of certain time-orders of things. In a farming community, if you were late and missed the season, you had to wait until next year. So clearly time can create priorities. Then, finally we come to working on our own homes. I don't think that this means to always put home and family last. In fact, in verse 3 it says that "by wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established." So as I start a family with Susan, the challenge for me will be to understand the work that God has for me to do, to understand the critical timings that are present in work, and then have enough wisdom to know when work had gone beyond God, or timing is no longer as He had intendid, and to set work aside and elevate the home to priority #1. This way when I understand all of these things, family will always be rightfully first. If this then is the true order of things (as given by God) since Susan is prayerful in her own respects, I should not fear the times when I must choose work over family so long as I am completely confident that I am either doing a work for the Lord or a work that is critical in time for Him. She will understand these things from God as well and know that my heart is with family and home but to truly execute God's will for any given day of my life, that I have to do work. I pray for the Lord to give me the ability to see work as He does and not to be overcome with my own desire for completing objectives and makeing achievements. -Bob