“Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD.”
~ Psalms 128:4
Hi James and Ellen,
Are you being blessed with blessings? Psalm 128 clarifies how a guy or gal will be blessed with blessings. The source of blessings is God. A guy or gal will be blessed with blessings if he or she fears God by living his or her life in complete awe of God. A guy or gal will be blessed with blessings if he or she lives the kind of life that is desired, expected and mandated by God. A guy and gal will be blessed with blessings when what they eat is what they have planted and cared for in their fields. A guy and gal will be blessed with blessings when what they do with the land that God has given them to live on leads to their having prosperity. A guy will be blessed with blessings when the wife that God gave him is a beautiful, happy gal who is like a fruitful vine. A guy will be blessed with blessings when the sons that God gives him are content, healthy growing kids who are like olive shoots. A guy and gal who God leads to become husband and wife will be blessed with blessings when they live long enough lives to see their kids marry and who have kids of their own. This psalm song has a reoccurring blessing theme that is summed up in verse 4, “Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD.” This psalm song – which may have been a song of ascents and a Levitical or priestly word of instruction for the guys and gals who traveled to the city of Jerusalem to worship God in His temple that was located in the city of Jerusalem, asserts and affirms that true blessedness – which only comes from God, will lead to – at the time when this psalm song was scribed, having unbroken success, a secure relationship with God, a secure national existence and a long blessed life while living in the land of Israel and in the city of Jerusalem. If your home is being blessed with blessings, it is because a godly dad has unconditionally and unreservedly taken the responsibility of holding the accountability umbrella over the lives of his kids and the life of his wife and your ma. If your home is being blessed with blessings, a spirit of domestic joy will permeate every family function and activity from getting up in the morning, to eating together, to playing together and to going to bed at night. Blessings are the result of being a committed Christ-follower dad, ma and kids whose lives are centered on ‘fearfully’ reflecting the glory of God back to Him and on every guy, gal and kid who come into his or her circle.
If the floors in your house were dirt, if the beds in your house were roughly cut, flat slabs of wood, if the walls in your house were made from cornstalks, if the roof of your house was covered with palm fronds or grass, if there were more chickens and dogs in your house than you kids, if . . ., would you feel as blessed with blessings as you are today – assuming that you are blessed with blessings because you have a dad who has gone through the faith/grace door to be a Christ-follower and who is carrying the responsibility umbrella to insure the best that he can that his family is protected from heavy rains and occupying hail stones that come as temptation, trial and testing storms that are constantly trying to hurt and drown you? If you had no game box, if you had no TV, if you had no soccer ball, if you had no music keyboard, if your dad had no car, if your ma had no stove, if . . ., would you feel as blessed with blessings as you are today – assuming that you are blessed with blessings because . . . your grandmaa and grandpaa have eaten in houses that have dirt floors, have beds that have been made from roughly cut, flat slabs of have, have walls that have gaps between the boards that make up the walls of the house, have roofs covered with palm fronds and have chickens wandering around under crude tables and dogs sleeping under their chairs while they ate. Your grandmaa and grandpaa have eaten in houses where all the food that they have eaten has been prepared over an open fire. Your grandpaa thinks that meals that are fixed over an open fire are the best meals that he has eaten.
Who do you think is the most blessed with blessings – the kid who fishes with your grandpaa who can tell your grandpaa what animal, bird or insect is making jungle sounds or you as you are watching ‘Animal Kingdom’ with a guy or gal on ‘Animal Kingdom’ telling you the name of each animal, bird and insect and the sound that each animal, bird and insect is making? Who do you think is the most blessed with blessings – the kid who gets to eat a fish that has been prepared to eat by being thrown on a pile of burning brush, who gets to eat soup that is made from water taken out of a nearby river and with squash and cooking bananas grown on his dad’s property, who gets to eat oranges, avocadoes or mangos that are picked off a tree that is growing on his dad’s land or you when you go to a fast food place for a readymade meal or when your ma fixes you a meal out of a box or when you open the door of the refrigerator in your house and select from whatever fruit is in the refrigerator? Who do you think is the most blessed with blessings – the kid who can go with his dad to help his dad pull weeds that are growing in his dad’s fields of corn, beans and/or rice that he planted on his plot of land, who can be outside and play with kids without having to worry about a guy wanting to hurt him or her, who can go to a nearby river to go swimming or fishing or you who has school and other activities that you can go to most days, who can read whatever book that you want to read and who has a TV and/or a computer and/or a game box and/or a music keyboard that you can use for your own entertainment? Being blessed with blessings has nothing to do with location, with having things or being in a stage of life; being blessed with blessings has everything to do with knowing God. A kid who live in a rustic, rural area of an underdeveloped, emerging country can be just as blessed with blessings as a kid who lives in a residential, urban area of a developed country like the United States if his or her dad is ‘fearfully’ reflecting God’s glory back to Him.
Psalm 128 (690)