Step Up (Escalon)

He had arranged to leave Babylon on April 8, the first day of the new year, and he arrived at Jerusalem on August 4, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. I took my troubles to the LORD; I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.
-Ezra 7:9, Psalm 120:1

I believe that a word for 2015, is escalon.  Escalon is a Spanish word that, in English means stair, rung, tier, step, stage, stepping stone, or level.

I immediately turned to Psalm 37:23 and Proverbs 20:24, that say:

The Lord directs the steps of the godly.  He delights in every detail of their lives.

The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way.

These are great verses, but the Spanish translations of the Bible that I looked at, do not have escalon for steps in these two verses.  Escalon means the actual step or stair that carries us up as we step up onto it.  The step or rung or tier elevates us to a higher level.

The escalon (step, rung, tier, or path up) is something you step onto that elevates you.  It is like a promotion, like a raise, or like an upgrade.  I chose the two verses above because they carry the escalon idea.

January is our first month of the year, but Nisan, that starts in our month of April, is the first  month in the Jewish calendar.  It is notable that the Jewish calendar begins in the first of Tishrei, in our Fall, on Rosh Hashanah, which is the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve.  That would be the beginning or “head of the year”.

Mankind started at Rosh Hashanah and the day of atonement, when sheep pass under the shepherd’s rod, is very important and solemn.  That marks the new year for mankind.

But the new year, commemorating the beginning of the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, when God called a people up and out, unto himself happens at Passover.

Jesus was crucified and rose again over the Passover weekend.  What we call Easter is really the the anniversary of the new beginning or deliverance of the world (John 3:16).  Jesus became God’s Passover lamb that takes away the sins of the world, for all who will believe.

So, you get the idea that New Year in the Jewish, Hebrew, or Biblical mind, has to do with deliverance, exodus, and new life in Christ. Ezra makes the point that at the anniversary time of the exodus and Passover,  he went up and out of Babylon to Jerusalem.  It was a 4 month journey in the summer.

We also see this idea of ascending towards God, up the steps provided, in the introduction to Psalm 120.  Something I want to take from 2014 into 2015 is the idea or realization that we are going up on steps God has provided.

I wrote a series of posts about the steps or songs of ascents, described in Psalms 120 through 134.  I placed a link to all those posts on the top right column.  ——>  You can also click here, and that link will take you to them, but the last will be at the top (Psalm 134), and you will scroll down to Psalm 133 and so forth.

Post Script Notes for the New Year:

Lastly, for my first post of the new year, I want to say that blog posts are not always masterpieces or scholarly papers.  That should be stating the obvious.  But, they sometimes are gems (Matt. 13:52).

For example, I was walking with my son, when we were on vacation in Catalina, and I said, extemporaneously, “you know, I carried you before you were born”.  We both kind of said, “huh?’, after I said that.  Then my mind kicked in and I reasoned that my wife and I are one in marriage, so in a sense, I did carry him.

I sat with that thought and when I could get into a concordance, I looked to see if there was a verse for this thought, and there was.  It is Isaiah 46:3.  I had spoke the word of the Lord (a Bible verse) that was true for me, my son, and all believers.  That is how my August 24th post was born.  I probably did not want the focus to be on me, so that is why I did not share the story I just shared.  But I now think that it is good to share that AND what the word of God says and means.

I do share things that are “ah ha!” or “eureka!” moments that are sometimes beautiful revelations that are in plain sight, that I saw and now write about.  Blog posts are also notes, thoughts, and sometimes rough drafts.  I have often corrected and changed or even deleted posts after I “published” them.

Happy new year!

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I found the picture about linking to a blog called God’s Appointed Time.

The Power in Blessing God – Psalm 134

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

Oh, praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord,
You who serve at night in the house of the Lord.
Lift your hands toward the sanctuary, and praise the Lord.

May the Lord, who made heaven and earth, bless you from Jerusalem.

-Psalm 134 (NLT)

Psalm 134 is the last of the songs of ascent or pilgrim songs of Psalms 120 to 134.  I have called them songs of the steps.  This last one is a priestly benediction.

“Oh praise the Lord”, the song begins.  If you know God, it is natural to praise God.  To be in God’s presence is to praise, worship, and fear him in holy awe.  Yet, being in the world, and living in the already and the not yet of God’s kingdom, we need the priestly call to worship.

It is important to note that worship is to be God centered.  Worship and songs of praise are for one person.  We sing to Jesus, we sing to Father, and we sometimes sing to the Holy Spirit.

Worship and songs of praise are not for us to feel better or for us to get in the mood to hear the message or to create an atmosphere for ministry.  We don’t worship to get God to come and touch us.

Worship is to God alone and for God alone.  We may be touched while worshiping and worship and praise probably will change the atmosphere, wherever you are; but that’s not why we bless and praise the Lord.

Most people think of church or worship services as occurring during day time.  But, this song makes reference to nighttime worship services.  The psalmist calls out to all the people as literally ‘servants of Yahweh, who are standing in Yahweh’s house by night.’

Do you enjoy worship at night?  I do.  Have you ever worshiped in dim light or by candle light?  That is the festive idea of the song.

We are all serving the Lord in blessing him.  Standing is a picture of serving.  Servers stand and walk around.  To serve God, you must stand up.  Serving God in worship has a posture of giving to or blessing God.

We have it backwards if we go to and enter into worship to receive.  Imagine a relationship where you just want to take and not give.  That’s all that a baby knows (1 Cor. 3:1, 13:11).

The house of the Lord is now the people of God.  You are the temple of the spirit (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19).  The journey or pilgrimage described in the songs of ascent (or the steps) is a journey towards God.

In this last step, we discover or revel in the joy of blessing God in celebration together.  We are the house of the Lord, together.  If you are alone, you can still worship as well.

What if the highest call is celebration, preferably together?  What if the highest level of or key to spiritual maturity is blessing God, worshiping him and thanking him?  This is the opposite of what the world does (Rom. 1:21).

By making worship or praise, being thankful to and blessing God a daily priority or way of life, we grow spiritually and have our minds continually renewed (Rom. 12:1).  This last step caps everything off as a key to life.

If we do not worship God, every day, which is being thankful and blessing him, all the progress in the previous 14 steps will unravel, go stale, or lose their place in our life.  We will become like the person who looks in the mirror, then forgets what he looks like (James 1:23-4).

Every day needs to have a time of celebration, thanking God for what he has done today.  This is the opposite spirit of the way of the world, that does not thank God, and falls into bondage (Rom. 1:21).

Lift your hands toward the sanctuary, and praise the Lord.

The lifting of hands occurs many times in the Psalms.  We lift our hands to bless God.  It is a physical gesture of blessing

Many churchgoing Christians do not lift their hands, when worshiping or praising God.  I think that we get shy or just have not been instructed.  We use our bodies to bless God and that is what lifting the hands is about.

Whether you open your hands at waist level, with your elbows bent; or if you lift up your hands over your head, you are doing so as an act of blessing the Lord, and it is completely Biblical.

When we worship, when we bless the Lord, we enter into the blessing of God, we are blessed.  The psalmist writes, ‘May the Lord, who made heaven and earth, bless you from Jerusalem.‘  We bless the Lord, for who the Lord is, and the Lord blesses us back.  God lives in the, ‘give and it shall be given’, principle.

Worship, praise, thanksgiving, and blessing open a door in our lives to and from God, that we want open.  This is Leslie Allen’s final thoughts on Psalm 134:

Zion (Jerusalem NLT) is a doorway that opens out into the power behind the world.  Blessing extends in a remarkable circle.  Dynamic potential is given to those who give Yahweh sincere acknowledgement of his power.  Essentially it is unsought and comes as a gracious byproduct of worship.  In keeping with this attribute of power the divine object of blessing becomes an active object.  He generously shares with his devoted followers from his own resources of omnipotence so that abundant life may be theirs.(1)

In summary, Psalm 134 teaches us that the last step, in the steps of ascent, is a life of celebrating God, of blessing him.  When we bless God, he blesses us back and God creatively releases more blessing into our lives.

To review the 15 steps we have now covered:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.
10. We learn that suffering is part of the faith walk towards God.  God uses suffering to grow us up into Christ-likeness.  This may surprise us after we have done so well, ‘going wide’, in learning to walk with God, cultivating a rich relationship with him, and learning to enjoy the blessings.  After learning to ‘go wide’ with God, having an enlarged ‘God life’, we begin to learn to ‘go deep’.
11. We are surprised to learn, after we have been walking with God for some time, that God has more redemptive work that he wants to do in us.  We discover deep places where we want God.  God in turn redeems us in those deep places with his unfailing, steadfast, covenant love; and we are made more like Christ.
12. We learn to humble our selves, and stop all the crying and chatter. We can say that we are not proud, to God, and that we don’t have it all figured out, but have a lifestyle of trusting him in our lives, that dethrones pride. We patiently embrace the silence of waiting, and encouraging others in a life of hope in God.
13. We learn to be more concerned or preoccupied with God and God’s habitation in us, than with our selves, in all our lives.  We get a revelation that, “my house is Gods house”, and we want to dwell in God in our whole lives and God’s presence in our whole lives brings a blessing to others and God blesses us generationally.
14. We learn that harmony or unity among God’s people comes from learned maturity.  The mature people must come under the headship of Christ in their lives and when they function together.  This results in unity or harmony or getting along, which results in the anointing from God, which is an increased presence of the Holy Spirit among us together.  And God refreshes those who function in this oneness, all the way to eternal life.
15. We learn to live a life of celebrating God, of blessing him.  When we bless God, and he blesses us back and creatively releases more blessing into our lives.

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The artwork above, From Whom All Blessings Flow, is by Stacey-Robin H. Johnson
1. Allen, Leslie C., Word Biblical Commentary, Psalms 101-150, p.218

Together – Psalm 133

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. A psalm of David.
A Song of Ascents. (NRSV)
A Pilgrim Song of David (MSG)
A Song of Ascents. Of David. (ESV)
A pilgrimage song. Of David. (VOICE)
A song of David for those journeying to worship. (CEB)
How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!
How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! (NRSV)

How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! (MSG)

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! (ESV)
How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in peace! (VOICE)
Look at how good and pleasing it is when families live together as one! (CEB)
For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe.
It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. (NRSV)
It’s like costly anointing oil flowing down head and beard, Flowing down Aaron’s beard, flowing down the collar of his priestly robes. (MSG)
It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down onthe collar of his robes! (ESV)
It is like expensive oil poured over the head, running down onto the beard— Aaron’s beard!— which extended over the collar of his robes. (CEB)
It is like the finest oils poured on the head, sweet-smelling oils flowing down to cover the beard, Flowing down the beard of Aaron, flowing down the collar of his robe. (VOICE)

Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion.
And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting.
It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion.  For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life forevermore. (NRSV)
It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion.  Yes, that’s where God commands the blessing,
ordains eternal life. (MSG)

It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!  For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore. (ESV)
It is like the dew on Mount Hermon streaming down onto the mountains of Zion, because it is there that the Lord has commanded the blessing: everlasting life. (CEB)
It is like the gentle rain of Mount Hermon that falls on the hills of Zion.  Yes, from this place, the Eternal spoke the command, from there He gave His blessing—life forever. (VOICE)

-Psalm 133 (NLT)

Harmony, unity, and getting along carry with them the idea of brothers and sisters being able to stay together.  Unity is most needed for us to work together, to stay together, and to live together in harmony.  We can only have unity if we have maturity and the headship of Christ in the church.

Someone was careful to put these fifteen psalms in a certain order.  Psalm 133 certainly comes out of Psalm 132.  If You have a life of ‘God first’, resulting in being a blessing to others, unity or harmony with others comes naturally.

Conversely, if we do not have the maturity of a ‘God first’ and a ‘being a blessing to others’, life, then unity or getting along is hard or not possible.  ‘God first’ is a personal and corporate thing.

The beard of Aaron might symbolize that we grow up into maturity.  We don’t expect babies, toddlers, and even children to be mature.  Boys become men and girls become women.  There is a time to enter in to manhood and womanhood (1 Cor. 13:11), which I believe is age 13.

The oil that comes down on Aaron’s head is the anointing that comes when we are in unity.  Notice that it comes on the head first, which symbolizes the headship of Christ.  We have Aaron’s name here, which I believe is a picture of Christ as the high priest, but his sharing his priestly ministry with all believers.

I believe that the anointing oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit.  I believe that the Holy Spirit loves the headship of Jesus Christ over his people and he also loves it when his people are in unity, and that these release a blessing from him, like wheels on a cart being oiled so that they roll more freely.

Unity or harmony is refreshing.  Refresh means to make fresh again.  “May I refresh your water”, the waiter might ask.

My dad used to hose down the driveway whenever we had company coming.  He refreshed everything and this made things look nicer.  That is the picture of waking up to dew being on everything.  It is fresh.  We call gentle, misty rain, “dew”.  To me, everything looks kissed when there has been dew.  It is a beautiful picture of God’s blessing.

God’s love for us does not change, even when we sin, or when we refuse to grow up.  But since we have freedom as persons and God is also a person.  God reacts to things we do sometimes, with a blessing.  It is like sensing God’s smile.  I bet Jesus felt that his whole life.  And the biggest example of God reacting perhaps was when God spoke out and said, “this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased”.

When God commands a blessing, it is a good thing for us that we don’t want to pass up.  I believe what God is looking for is for us to be under Christ’s headship and thereby, in unity with one another.  Unity comes from people who are mature, making God first and who are a blessing to others.  And unity only works when all of our life is under Christ’s headship.

In summary, Psalm 133 teaches us that harmony or unity among God’s people comes from learned maturity.  The mature people must come under the headship of Christ in their lives and when they function together.  This results in unity or harmony or getting along, which results in the anointing from God, which is an increased presence of the Holy Spirit among us together.  And God refreshes those who function in this oneness, all the way to eternal life.

To review the 14 steps we have now covered:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.
10. We learn that suffering is part of the faith walk towards God.  God uses suffering to grow us up into Christ-likeness.  This may surprise us after we have done so well, ‘going wide’, in learning to walk with God, cultivating a rich relationship with him, and learning to enjoy the blessings.  After learning to ‘go wide’ with God, having an enlarged ‘God life’, we begin to learn to ‘go deep’.
11. We are surprised to learn, after we have been walking with God for some time, that God has more redemptive work that he wants to do in us.  We discover deep places where we want God.  God in turn redeems us in those deep places with his unfailing, steadfast, covenant love; and we are made more like Christ.
12. We learn to humble our selves, and stop all the crying and chatter. We can say that we are not proud, to God, and that we don’t have it all figured out, but have a lifestyle of trusting him in our lives, that dethrones pride. We patiently embrace the silence of waiting, and encouraging others in a life of hope in God.
13. We learn to be more concerned or preoccupied with God and God’s habitation in us, than with our selves, in all our lives.  We get a revelation that, “my house is Gods house”, and we want to dwell in God in our whole lives and God’s presence in our whole lives brings a blessing to others and God blesses us generationally.
14. We learn that harmony or unity among God’s people comes from learned maturity.  The mature people must come under the headship of Christ in their lives and when they function together.  This results in unity or harmony or getting along, which results in the anointing from God, which is an increased presence of the Holy Spirit among us together.  And God refreshes those who function in this oneness, all the way to eternal life.

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The artwork above is by Benejou Rabinowicz

My House is His House – Psalm 132

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

Lord, remember David and all that he suffered.
He made a solemn promise to the Lord.
He vowed to the Mighty One of Israel,
“I will not go home; I will not let myself rest.
I will not let my eyes sleep nor close my eyelids in slumber until I find a place to build a house for the Lord, a sanctuary for the Mighty One of Israel.”

We heard that the Ark was in Ephrathah; then we found it in the distant countryside of Jaar.
Let us go to the sanctuary of the Lord; let us worship at the footstool of his throne.
Arise, O Lord, and enter your resting place, along with the Ark, the symbol of your power.
May your priests be clothed in godliness; may your loyal servants sing for joy.
For the sake of your servant David, do not reject the king you have anointed.
The Lord swore an oath to David with a promise he will never take back:
“I will place one of your descendants on your throne.
If your descendants obey the terms of my covenant
and the laws that I teach them, then your royal line will continue forever and ever.”

For the Lord has chosen Jerusalem; he has desired it for his home.
“This is my resting place forever,” he said.
“I will live here, for this is the home I desired.
I will bless this city and make it prosperous;
I will satisfy its poor with food.
I will clothe its priests with godliness; its faithful servants will sing for joy.
Here I will increase the power of David; my anointed one will be a light for my people.
I will clothe his enemies with shame, but he will be a glorious king.”

-Psalm 132 (NLT)

Psalm 132 is the 13th song of ascent, pilgrim’s song, or song of the steps; that in all are 15.  It is also the first song in the 5th set of three.  Titus Chu calls the 5th set, the stage of maturity.  To review, the five sets or stages are these, according to him:

1. Vision
2. Consecration
3. Enjoyment
4. Enlargement
5. Maturity

Every stage and every step has matured us.  We have learned maturity or been discipled through each of the previous steps.  We start out with a large amount of selfishness or narcissism.  But then, we step outside our selves, and begin a journey towards God.  We learn to ‘go vertical’.

After the first six steps or lessons, we have grown a lot, and then we come to Psalms 126-128, which we called the enjoyment set.  We learn there about living the enjoyable life.  But then we learned that we were not finished with growth.  The next stage, the enlargement stage of Psalms 129 to 131, taught us that we were shallow and still selfish.

We learned that there is still much redemption that we need from God, and we went deeper to open up to God to heal our lives.  We learned that suffering is part of the normal Christian life.  We also learned humility.

All of these things, these lessons, make us less selfish.  Maturity is a person walking before God who is generous.  The mature believer becomes a blessing to all.  He or she has learned to be blessed, then bless others; and to bless before they are themselves blessed (Luke 6:38).

Mature believers also have learned to discern the body of Christ.  They know that they are just part of the whole.  They know that their story is part of a larger story.

When we say or pray, “Lord, remember David and all that he suffered.”, and what follows, about David’s life; we are saying to God that we want to be like David, people who are after God’s own heart.

The passion of David’s life is worship.  He learned to worship, as a boy.  And he taught his people to worship, as a man, and as king.

David wanted God to be worshiped on earth.  That is why he cared so much about The Ark and building The Temple.  He wanted to build a house of worship.

The author of Psalm 132 recounts the story of David’s desire to give The Ark a resting place and build a temple, and then God’s response to build an everlasting dynasty through David.  The psalmist recounts this history and recites it as a prayer to God.

We now live in the far future from when this psalm was penned.  Jesus has come, who is the son of David.  Worship is now completely portable.  The Temple, that David’s son built was ruined in 70 A.D.

So, what do we now learn from Psalm 132?  We learn that we, who are in Christ, David’s son; are part of a bigger story.  This step or degree enjoins us to recount the story of David, and his desire to build God a house.  David is the man after God’s own heart.  David was very blessed, but he also suffered.  He had afflictions, hardships, troubles, hard times, strenuous times and humblings.  He was brought to meekness and self denial by his life’s circumstances.

David had good times and bad times.  He sought after God in many of the bad times and wrote psalms in them that bless us today.  David’s heart ached over God’s place of worship or God’s house on earth.  David became so concerned about God, the presence of God, and the place for meeting with God for worship and prayer and offerings; that it overwhelmed him.  David said that God’s place or God’s house was more important to him than his home.

As we go up the path of maturity, as people of God, we make God and the things of God and even the people of God a priority in our lives.  And we learn to receive from God and be blessed.  “What a wonderful life God has given me”, we might say.

But that is not the mountaintop of full maturity.  It is good, but not the best. We can be good Christian people, but not yet be reaching the maturity that Jesus has called us to, in giving up our lives for his sake.

David said, “I will not go home until I build God’s house”.  David’s statement reveals his mature heart for God.  The mature person puts God over self or God’s house over our house.  It means, to seek first the kingdom, it means that we count all things as loss compared to knowing him.

We are not Jesus’ girlfriend.  We are his bride.  We have totally given ourselves, our whole lives to him; and we are completely in his care, for better or worse. We don’t stay married to Christ only as the blessings flow, but we are married to him, because he is our only savior and because he is God.

The place of maturity is when we put him first in every aspect of our lives as our source of life.  If you don’t have enough of anything, you need to first get more of him and let go of your self.

The mature believer sees everything they have as God’s.  We are only stewards of it all.

David’s mature faith of putting God first stepped him up into a higher level, where God gave him something beyond anything he could imagine (Eph. 3:20).

There is also something here, about rest, when the psalmist quotes David saying, “I will not let myself rest”, and “arise, O Lord and enter your resting place”, and David says that God said, “this is my resting place forever”.  Augustine’s famous words come to my mind:

“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”

I want to rest in God, and let God rest in me.  What if God’s goal with his people, is to be able to inhabit or house himself in them, so save the world?  What if that is the application of Psalm 132 for the Christian?

The mature believer is a prophetic evangelist(1) and a priest of God, partnering with God for the world’s evangelization, while ministering to other believers.  This is the degree that God wants to have all his children learn.  Space is available.

The teacher is ready.  You have to decide if you want to take this step up into maturity.  The mature life is a life of being a blessing.  And to be a blessing, we make God first.

The outflow of this life is God’s blessing on the generations and a people inhabited by God, for God’s purpose, which we know is to save the world.

In summary, this thirteenth step of fifteen steps of degrees or ascent, that are also called pilgrim songs; is the step into maturity, where we learn to be more concerned or preoccupied with God and God’s habitation in us, than with our selves, in all our lives.  We get a revelation that, “my house is Gods house”, and we want to dwell in God in our whole lives and God’s presence in our whole lives brings a blessing to others and God blesses us generationally.

To review the 13 steps we have now covered:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.
10. We learn that suffering is part of the faith walk towards God.  God uses suffering to grow us up into Christ-likeness.  This may surprise us after we have done so well, ‘going wide’, in learning to walk with God, cultivating a rich relationship with him, and learning to enjoy the blessings.  After learning to ‘go wide’ with God, having an enlarged ‘God life’, we begin to learn to ‘go deep’.
11. We are surprised to learn, after we have been walking with God for some time, that God has more redemptive work that he wants to do in us.  We discover deep places where we want God.  God in turn redeems us in those deep places with his unfailing, steadfast, covenant love; and we are made more like Christ.
12. We learn to humble our selves, and stop all the crying and chatter. We can say that we are not proud, to God, and that we don’t have it all figured out, but have a lifestyle of trusting him in our lives, that dethrones pride. We patiently embrace the silence of waiting, and encouraging others in a life of hope in God.
13. We learn to be more concerned or preoccupied with God and God’s habitation in us, than with our selves, in all our lives.  We get a revelation that, “my house is Gods house”, and we want to dwell in God in our whole lives and God’s presence in our whole lives brings a blessing to others and God blesses us generationally.

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The painting above is called “pure contentment”, by Terry Redlin
1. The Logic of Evangelism By William James Abraham, 1989, p. 63; quoting David Lowes Watson

Humbling Quiet Hope in God – Psalm 131

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. A psalm of David.

LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty.

I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.

Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.  

Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD— now and always.

-Psalm 131 (NLT)

Psalm 131 is more of a private prayer, than the previous psalms. After everything that the Lord has brought me through, I want to be able to say, “my heart is not proud and my eyes are not filled with arrogance”. 

My flesh or my carnal self wants to be proud and wants to run the show.  It thinks it is superior to others.  Our sick selfish selves are grandiose.  We take the place of God, in our own and other’s lives.

If we think we are better than others, and that is what ‘haughty eyes’ mean, then we are off-track, and the ‘homework’ from the previous eleven step psalms has not been taken seriously.  David, with all he went through, and with all the favor and blessings from God in his life, learned humility.  We have to learn it too.

When we evaluate, critique, or judge others ungraciously; we stand in danger of being the proud person that God must resist.  But, if you have embraced suffering with Christ (Psalm 129), and if you have had a revelation that there is more redemption that you need (Psalm 130); then you are ready to pray Psalm 131.

We need to know our sphere of responsibility, or what our assignment is.  There is humility in knowing that you don’t know all the answers.  Kings, presidents, and leaders in every sector are wise if they realize that they don’t know everything, even in their area.  There is always more to be learned and we need to know our limits.

The big idea throughout all of the songs of the steps or pilgrim songs, is trusting God, and Psalm 131 carries on this theme.  By not being proud, arrogant, pretentious, and better than others, we are displaying or living out trust in God. 

We need to remind ourselves that we are not God.  We need to learn to control our selves, to calm and quiet our souls.  We need to exercise faith, and wean ourselves from being a crying baby.  We learn dependence on God and never out grow it, as we grow up.

If you can not say, “Lord, my heart is not proud”, right now, you can repent.  You might circle back to Psalm 130, and admit your sinfulness and ask God to redeem you and transform you.  Humble yourself, so that he might lift you out of that deep pit of darkness.  Wait for rescue and seek for God to change out your defective character.

It is good to know you are loved and no matter what the gifts are that are operating in your life, you are just one of God’s many servants on the earth today.  That seems to be David’s attitude.  We need to have a proper sense of our selves, as David did.

Psalm 131 teaches us that we need to learn to still and quiet our souls, as a way of humbling ourselves, to the point that we can say honestly that we are done with pride, the pride of thinking we know it all or the pride that thinks we are in control, even as we try to exert control through worry.

Pride needs to die on the cross.  There is a strange form of pride that says the we are uniquely so bad, that God does not want to bother with us.  That is a lie and a deception.  We need a big God and small people.  God’s love and grace is beyond us.  

As we humble our selves, and stop all the crying and chatter, we will find that God will fill the space we make with depth in our lives.  And we will be patient to wait on God and wait on people, because our hope is in God, not our selves or other people.

This was our twelfth step or degree. Here is the review of the previous ones:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.
10. We learn that suffering is part of the faith walk towards God.  God uses suffering to grow us up into Christ-likeness.  This may surprise us after we have done so well, ‘going wide’, in learning to walk with God, cultivating a rich relationship with him, and learning to enjoy the blessings.  After learning to ‘go wide’ with God, having an enlarged ‘God life’, we begin to learn to ‘go deep’.
11. We are surprised to learn, after we have been walking with God for some time, that God has more redemptive work that he wants to do in us.  We discover deep places where we want God.  God in turn redeems us in those deep places with his unfailing, steadfast, covenant love; and we are made more like Christ.
12. We learn to humble our selves, and stop all the crying and chatter. We can say that we are not proud, to God, and that we don’t have it all figured out, but have a lifestyle of trusting him in our lives, that dethrones pride. We patiently embrace the silence of waiting, and encouraging others in a life of hope in God.

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Deep Pain, Deep Redemption – Psalm 130

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

From the depths of despair, O Lord,
I call for your help.
Hear my cry, O Lord.
Pay attention to my prayer.

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,
who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But you offer forgiveness,
that we might learn to fear you.

I am counting on the Lord;
yes, I am counting on him.
I have put my hope in his word.
I long for the Lord
more than sentries long for the dawn,
yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.

O Israel, hope in the Lord;
for with the Lord there is unfailing love.
His redemption overflows.
He himself will redeem Israel
from every kind of sin.

-Psalm 130

I have been writing a series on the songs of ascent, as they are most commonly called.  I call them the songs of the steps.  In the Hebrew, we get the idea of  degrees and the NLT, calls them pilgrim songs.

Some Bible teachers have noted that the fifteen songs are grouped into five sets of three.  Psalm 130 is in the middle of the fourth set, which has to do with going deeper, and that results in God transforming our pain into Christ-likeness.

Psalm 130 opens with, “out of the depths of despair, O Lord, I call for your help.  Hear my cry, O Lord.  Pay attention to my prayer.” We have the picture of a person, trapped in a dark pit, with no hope, unless someone rescues them.  Jonah prayed a prayer like this, when he was in the belly of the whale.

The NLT gives us or adds the word despair here, because the translators want you to know the meaning of the phrase.  The Hebrew idea of the depths is not a happy place, but the dark place of death and the grave.

Dark, hopeless, despair may come upon us.  Our deep despair may be a hundred things.  Our cry is just, “help!”  Then we cry for God to pay attention, because it feels like he has looked away, and lost track of us.  To get in the place where you say to God, “are you hearing me?”, means that we are in despair.  We feel like we are in a hole or a tunnel or somehow in the dark or down low.  If we feel the need to say, “is anybody up there?”, to God, it isn’t that we have bad theology or are immature, but that we feel something that does not feel good.  We are disoriented.

What is interesting is that this is a lesson we learn in mid-life.  Mid-life does not have to be age 40 or 50.  What I mean by mid-life is in your life, after some time has past.  That could mean sooner or later, depending on your desire for spiritual growth.

I believe that at some point, we get a new revelation that we need God more than we thought we did.  We need God to go down, deeper into us.  We have learned about sinking our roots deeper into Christ.  But now we learn that our salvation is kind of shallow and God wants to deepen it.  We have things like grace, hope, faith, and love working in our lives, but God wants to deepen all of these.

When we sing, “amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”, do we really see our wretchedness outside of Christ?  There is a place, where we see our personal wretchedness, and our need of deep redemption, deep healing, and deep and life-long salvation as a process.

When we discover wretchedness in our lives that we were in denial of, we invite God into that place, to redeem us.  The promise is that if you go deep into despair, that God will go with you, redeeming your pain with his covenant love (steadfast love, Ps. 130:7, ESV).  That is good news.  How great is our salvation!

The path to maturity is the path of suffering.  If Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered, then we will too.  If he builds his church and we work with him, he needs us to have his servant-hood in us, so that he can use us to help people get into the same process of Christ-likeness that we are in.

As the sun is faithful to rise every morning, God is faithful to redeem us and save us, all the way into and through the most ugly parts of our inner selves.  As you go forward and receive a blessed life, it is God’s doing, to let you see that you have not arrived.  You are no finished being formed into Christ (Gal. 4:19).

If you want to be a minister who has a gift to build up the body of his church, then he takes that seriously and will be developing you, so that he can use you to build up others, just as he builds (Eph. 4:11-13).  There is a saying, that, “what is does to you, he does through you”.  Everything God has brought you through, gives you moral authority to help others get through that same thing and grow up into Christ.

This was the eleventh step, in the songs of ascents or degrees, of Psalms 120-134.  Let’s review the previous ten, with step eleven at the end:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.
10. We learn that suffering is part of the faith walk towards God.  God uses suffering to grow us up into Christ-likeness.  This may surprise us after we have done so well, ‘going wide’, in learning to walk with God, cultivating a rich relationship with him, and learning to enjoy the blessings.  After learning to ‘go wide’ with God, having an enlarged ‘God life’, we begin to learn to ‘go deep’.
11. We are surprised to learn, after we have been walking with God for some time, that God has more redemptive work that he wants to do in us.  We discover deep places where we want God.  God in turn redeems us in those deep places with his unfailing, steadfast, covenant love; and we are made more like Christ.

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The painting above is by Aaron Collier

Suffering Grows Us – Psalm 129

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me.
Let all Israel repeat this:
From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me,
but they have never defeated me.
My back is covered with cuts,
as if a farmer had plowed long furrows.
But the Lord is good;
he has cut me free from the ropes of the ungodly.

May all who hate Jerusalem (Zion)
be turned back in shameful defeat.
May they be as useless as grass on a rooftop,
turning yellow when only half grown,
ignored by the harvester,
despised by the binder.
And may those who pass by
refuse to give them this blessing:
“The Lord bless you;
we bless you in the Lord’s name.”

-Psalm 129 (NLT)

It came as a surprise to me that I had enemies.  I never learned that in church growing up, or from the older men who discipled me, nor from my parents.  Then, we had a song that I heard, that was based on Psalm 18, that had the words, “so shall I be saved from my enemies”.  “My enemies?  I don’t have enemies”, I reasoned.  I guess I was in for a rude awakening.

If you are working your way through these songs of the steps, they are a journey that has surprises.  So, you might be surprised at the suffering awaiting you.  Or, you might join right in with this song, being encouraged in it, as an affirmation.

We, who suffer, are not alone, but are part of a long stream of God’s people who have suffered.  If you have not suffered or have run from it, then Psalm 129 teaches you that suffering is part and parcel of the life of walking towards God.

Psalm 129 comes after Psalms 126-128, and to review:

• We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. (Psalm 126)
• We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God. (Psalm 127)
• We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life. (Psalm 128)

After these good messages, we come to Psalm 129, that is a harder word. It tells us that we have enemies.  But, there is a “but”.  The “but” is that the psalmist says that these enemies have never defeated us.  This reminds me of Jesus words:

“Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Suffering is part of the Christian life.  Jesus suffered, the first disciples suffered, and the authentic church has always faced suffering.  Some people today, come to Christ, having not been told that suffering awaits.  I didn’t hear much and perhaps nothing, about suffering, when I grew up in the church.  Maybe I didn’t want to hear it and avoided it.

Not matter what happens to us, God promises to keep his covenant with us.  The covenant is made with the blood of Jesus, and it is a promise of salvation.  He saves us in life and he saves us in death.  We all will die and some people die too early.  But even in our deaths, God carries us; so we do not fear death.

Let’s look at Psalm 129:

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me.
Let all Israel repeat this:
From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me.

The repeat is not an accident.  It means that God’s people have a target painted on their backs, as they say.  Persecution or affliction will very likely happen to you and it is normal.  You have enemies and God also allows afflictions to come into your life to train you.

But they have never defeated me.

We will get hit, but God is with us and God compensates us for each attack we endure (Isa. 61:3).  In the kingdom of God, there is a permanent year of jubilee, where stuff that was stolen is given back (Isa. 61:2, 2 Cor. 6:2).  There is divine compensation.  Look for it.

Apostle Paul wrote:

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you. (2 Cor. 4:8-12)

The good news are the “but” parts of what Paul wrote.

• You will have troubles, but be crushed.
• You will get perplexed, but not go into despair.
• You will be hunted down, but never abandoned by God.
• You will get knocked down, but not be destroyed.

 Psalm 129:

My back is covered with cuts, as if a farmer had plowed long furrows.

Do you long to know Jesus Christ more?  You will discover that part of the package is to have fellowship with him in his sufferings (Phil. 3:10).  Remember when Jesus said that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you will not have his life (John 6:48-66)?  He was not espousing cannibalism, but was talking about feeding on him to have life, in this life, and eternal life.  We get to have his life in our lives and live through him, which includes suffering.

Your back will be covered with cuts.  This means you are going to get hit.  You are going to get wounded.  You may get betrayed or wounded in the house of your friends (Zech. 13:6), just like Jesus did.  “Why oh why does God allow any of this”, you might ask.

A.W. Tozer said that, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”  That is a hard saying that is true.  It comes from Tozer’s book, The Root of The Righteous, that is based on Col. 2:6-7:

“And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

We have seen an ongoing theme of not only trusting God, but trusting him as you follow him.  The life is worked out in the walk.  God is building us into portable temples and lives that bear fruit.  And the roots into Christ bring the fruit.

I wondered about the context of that quote from A.W. Tozer, so here it is:

The flaming desire to be rid of every unholy thing and to put on the likeness of Christ at any cost is not often found among us. We expect to enter the everlasting kingdom of our Father and to sit down around the table with sages, saints and martyrs; and through the grace of God, maybe we shall; yes maybe we shall. But for the most of us it could prove at first an embarrassing experience. Ours might be the silence of the untried soldier in the presence of the battle-hardened heroes who have fought the fight and won the victory and who have scars to prove that they were present when the battle was joined. Thus, it is necessary for God to use suffering in his holy work of preparing his saints, it is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.

Back to Psalm 129:

But the Lord is good; he has cut me free from the ropes of the ungodly.

Do you know that God is good?  Other translations say, “the Lord is righteous”.  What he does is right.  I read what a brother had to say about the plowing that God allows in our lives, to humble us and bring us into Christ-likeness.  He said to see the suffering that God sends your way as from him and thank him for it and tell him that you need it.  Like, “thanks Lord, I needed that”.

Have you been set free?  Many people have not and are bound by something.  The key might be to allow the Lord to be Lord in that area.  Pray, and ask God if you are bound up somewhere in your life and cry out for freedom.  There are people serving their time who are free and there are people who are free, but are bound up in some way, in bondage they choose to not get free of.

At the end of Psalm 129, we have the curse that is upon those who oppose God:

May all who hate Jerusalem (Zion) be turned back in shameful defeat.
May they be as useless as grass on a rooftop, turning yellow when only half grown, ignored by the harvester, despised by the binder.
And may those who pass by refuse to give them this blessing:
“The Lord bless you; we bless you in the Lord’s name.”

This is what God says will happen to the hateful ones who oppose his people.  They will be defeated, there harvest is shallow and  not useful, and they miss out on a blessed life.

How do we reconcile, that it says here that the haters will not receive a blessing from those who pass by, with Jesus command to, “bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28)?  The picture of the curse awaiting the people who hate God’s people is a picture of a bad harvest, a useless harvest that is not harvest-able, and so it is despised.  No one will admire it or praise you for it.

It is like this.  When the proud are humbled, no when blesses that.  No one blesses a bad and backwards harvest that is the result of arrogant disregard for one’s neighbors.

Another way to look at it is that we don’t bless a criminal’s behavior that has led him to being arrested or disciplined.  We don’t release a blessing, onto the toxic harvest.  We don’t bless bad fruit that is the result of the curse that the person came under by hating God’s people.

This was out tenth of fifteen songs of the steps, or ascent, or degrees, or pilgrim songs (Psalms 120-134). To review Psalms 120-129, as steps of degrees:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.
10. We learn that suffering is part of the faith walk towards God.  God uses suffering to grow us up into Christ-likeness.  This may surprise us after we have done so well, ‘going wide’, in learning to walk with God, cultivating a rich relationship with him, and learning to enjoy the blessings.  After learning to ‘go wide’ with God, having an enlarged ‘God life’, we begin to learn to ‘go deep’.

_______________________________________________
The painting about is from Glenda Mathes blog post, Plowmen Have Not Prevailed

Enjoying The Fruitful Life From God – Psalm 128

A song of ascents.

Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him.

You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house.

Your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

Yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

May you live to see your children’s children— peace be on Israel.

–Psalm 128 (NIV)

Psalm 128 is the third psalm, in the third triad, of the five triads within the fifteen steps or degrees of the songs of ascent, found in Psalms 120 to 134.  A man named Titus Chu, postulated that the five triads I mentioned are:

1. Vision
2. Consecration
3. Enjoyment
4. Enlargement
5. Maturity

Psalm 128 is the third psalm in the enjoyment group.  Psalm 126 was about God restoring.  Psalm 127 was about God building.  Psalm 128 is about enjoying your life from God.  You have integrated vision, a life of looking for and seeing God.  Then you consecrated yourself to God.  Now, we have been learning about enjoying the life God gives to us.

Psalm 128 is a continuation of the same ideas we learned from Psalm 127.  God builds and we build with God.  Letting God build means that I surrender to God and am obedient to God.  That’s the idea of walking in his ways or keeping his commands.  The big idea is for me to let go of control and let God have his way in my life.  The main effort I exert is to bow down and yield to God.

When I choose to fear God, which means honoring him and respecting him, and being loyal to him; then following him with believing him and obeying him, the results are his blessings  – a blessed life.  Why would anyone not want that and why don’t some people experience it?  

You get to the blessed life through walking with God.  People who walk with God are God-fearers, who obey God.  The blessed life is a life of true happiness.

We have been looking at degrees of walking with God, from the preceding psalms.  If you jump in here, over half way through the set of degrees; you might miss something or misunderstand.  Everything here in Psalm 128 is true, standing alone; but it is richer and more filled with meaning, when we look at in the context of the previous steps.

Psalm 128 tells us that we are blessed who fear the Lord and walk in obedience to him.  The outcome of that life is fruitfulness, blessings, and prosperity.  These will come through your family life.  It will come through your labor, through your wife (if you are a man), through your children, and through your children’s children.

Seeing your children’s children or having grandchildren caps off a blessed life.  The day my son was born, that was the promise I received (Ps. 128:6).  My own four grandparents were blessed to have us in their lives for between twenty and forty years.  My dad did not get to have that blessing, but I hope to have it.

I wrote about the promise I received a long time before I met my wife, of John 2:10, and how Johnathan was born at exactly 2:10 in the afternoon.  I thought the promise was about getting married.  It was like God was saying that getting married is a blessing, but the blessing that comes from marriage are children.

But that wasn’t enough.  While I was experiencing that blessing on top of the previous blessing, it was like God said, said, “I have to tell you that there’s more”.  And I was given the word, “may you live to see your children’s children.”  I was astonished by God’s blessing, past, present, and future.

Psalm 128 teaches us of the fortunate life of those who revere the Lord and walk in his ways.  Psalms 120 to 127 have been showing us how to do that.  We have to experience the life.  We live it out and that is how we grow.

It is not enough to hear about the life with God or just know about it.  We must live it.  We must walk with the living God.  I have a life verse that is, “Abraham… went out, without knowing where he was going” (Heb. 11:8).  For me, I have had to ‘go out’, in order to progress in my destiny journey towards God.  I recently have been realizing that it’s time to ‘go out’ some more.

In other words, we can get stuck with the, ‘not knowing where he was going’, part, and forget the, ‘went out’ part.  I have to remember the analogy that the guidance system does not come on until the rocket is airborne.  Therefore, “get thy rocket off the pad.”  Go out.  “Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him”.

We want to labor with what God is doing (Psalm 127).  This applies to our lives, which our jobs are a part of.  The result of a life built by God is fruitfulness.  And that means children.  There are biological children, adopted children, spiritual children, and metaphorical children, as in giving birth to something conceived in you by God.

What about barren women or men who have never fathered?  Isaiah 54:1 says that the barren woman, and by extension, the man who has never fathered; can rejoice in God, that God sees them, and has a fruitful plan for them.  Do you feel spiritually barren?  Read Isaiah 54.  Apostle Paul picks this concept up also in Galatians 4.

Whether you are single, married, widowed, divorced, separated, infertile or fertile, young or old, rich or poor; God wants you to be fruitful and spiritually prosperous.  But the first steps are to walk with him and fear him.  That means a life given over to God, lived unto God; a surrendered life.  That is the life that becomes fruitful.

This was the ninth song or ninth step in the songs of ascent or pilgrim songs (Psalms 120-134). To review Psalms 120-128, as steps of degrees:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 
8. We learn to trust God to build everything, and we labor under God in building, learning to enjoy finding rest, and becoming aware of the gift of and responsibility  of raising children for God.
9. We learn that the result of a life of revering God and walking with him is fruitfulness, which means children: your own or spiritual, or metaphorical; and having grandchildren is the end result of a blessed life.

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The painting above is Psalm 128 by Moshe Tzvi Halevi Berger

Restore Us Again – Psalm 126

A song of ascents

When the Lord restored the fortunes(a) of Zion,

we were like those who dreamed(b).

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes(c), Lord,

like streams in the Negev.

Those who sow with tears

will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

carrying seed to sow,

will return with songs of joy,

carrying sheaves with them.

-Psalm 126 (NIV)

Have you ever got something back that you lost or was taken away from you?  Have you ever been so happy about what God has done for you, that you can not stop smiling?  Have you ever experienced a miracle or God giving you something even better than you thought was possible?

This is what God has always done for his children.  He restores or gives back to us what was lost or stolen.  God has always had a plan to restore his captive people, to restore again what was lost or taken from them. I love the fact that this Hebrew word for restore, has ‘again’ in it, as in, “do it again”, or “again give what was lost”.

The idea here in Psalm 126 is, “God, you restored before, now please do it again”.  We can ask God to do something for us that we have seen him do for someone here and now, or people in history.  The common denominator is God.  God has always desired to restore us.

The history of God’s work among people should give us cause to ask God to do something like that again.  This seems to be the case with the author of this psalm  and it can be for us too.  We, in the west, need revival and great awakening.  “God, do it again”.

God wants to do a reversal of fortune.  God wants to give back and bring back people and things that have been lost or stolen.  It is what he does.  This is what happened to the man named Job (Job 42:10).

Older translations say, “turn back our captivity”.  What these two translations mean (restore our fortunes & turn back our captivity) is the idea bringing a person or people out the the state of being held back or being in bondage.

You may be in poor health, but not be in bondage; or you may be without wealth, but have the joy of the Lord.  The bigger idea or point of the restoration or deliverance that is being prayed for is that you have had your inheritance withheld, stolen, or side-tracked.  You have lost your joy that your were born to walk in.

The picture is a people who are not being who they were born to be, either because they have had something stolen or because they have been removed from their place of destiny.  That is the bridge of “in common” that we may have with the original writer and hearers of Psalm 126.  You may be in your land, but not living the life you were meant to live, or you may be removed from your land and longing to return.

Job is an example of a person that had everything taken from him, except his very life, a few friends, and his wife.  He went through a terrible time and then God restored his fortunes, or brought him out of captivity.

Psalm 126 has counsel for what do do in the between time, before restoration happens.  It says to, “sow in tears”.  It also says that those who do sow tears or, “go out weeping”, will, “return with songs of joy”.  The psalmist says to plant the seeds of your tears, like a farmer, and you will reap songs of joy.

So, we are admonished to release our sorrow into the ground and weep as we walk.  We need to do grieving and keep walking.  We are the people or the church of the walking wounded.  Walking and weeping are part of the journey.

If you do not let the pain go, release the tears, or do your grief work; and if you refuse to walk on, in spite of your loses, then you will not grow and be stuck.  Job, as an example, kept walking towards God, and his book is his journal.  Journaling is a way to record your life, even when it does not make sense.

I have heard it said that lament is the highest form of worship. The man that said this lost his brother in a freak accident and had a very difficult marriage.  Tears and weeping are a good thing, invented by God.  Let them flow freely and get free of binding grief.

There are three ideas in this psalm for us to get.  One, we need to know about what God has done in the past in regards to restoring his people to what they were born to be.  We need to know about the exhilaration of God bringing a reversal of fortune.  We need to hear the stories of the moves of God.

You may be someone who longs for revival, renewal, and awakening.  You may get it, that saints before us have experienced more, and you desire more.  You may read the Bible and say, “why not me, why not now?”.

Or, you may be, to a degree, like Job, and have had your stuff stolen.  It might be your destiny, your inheritance, your health, your reputation, or a hundred other examples.  You can definitely chime in with the psalmist and agree, saying, “restore my fortunes”, or, “bring me back from captivity”, or, “restore the fortunes of your people”.

It is great to see what can be, then realize what you don’t have and ask for it, but if the prayers are not immediately answered, we sow tears and weep in our journey.  The three must go together:

1. Awareness of what has been and is possible. 
2. Desire & request for destinies & inheritances to be fulfilled; personal; and for the community.
3. Maintaining equilibrium, as we do our grief work, and walk on towards God, in our brokenness. 

“What is grief work?”, you might ask.  God gave us the gift of grieving our losses, so that we can be healed.  People who have grieved will have scars, but be on the road to wholeness, even though they are broken.  People who don’t grieve, have open wounds and become ‘touchy’, neurotic people who are anxious and pained by much of their lives and might have to mask it constantly.  Remember, that Jesus had great sorrow and was very familiar with grief.  You, as his disciple are completely normal to be someone to has tears of sorrow and grief, and walks with weeping.

We do not grieve as the world grieves.  In the world, they do not have hope.  At best, they hope in hope, which is false hope.  We hope in God.  And this psalm ends with a promise that as you shed tears and go forward weeping, God will surprise you with joy.  Joy is surprising when you have grieved, but that is what God does for his children.  Try it.

We grieve the God way and then we cycle back to considering the great things God has done, and again we pray, “do it again”.  We get a revelation on what has been stolen, in one way or another, from us, and ask God to restore it to us.  With the shedding of tears and the life of weeping, fellowship-ing with the man of sorrows, in his sufferings; we pray from pure hearts, asking Father for what is ours.  The tears and the gift of joy promised to weeping walkers, cleanses our hearts from any bitterness or spiritual heart disease.  

This was the seventh song or seventh step in the songs of ascent or pilgrim songs (Psalms 120-134). To review Psalms 120-126, as steps of degrees:

1. We learn to call upon God and that God saves us and answers prayers.
2. We learn that God is our guardian, watching over us.
3. We learn to be worshipers, desiring God.
4. We choose to humble ourselves as servants as we ask for mercy.
5. We cultivate seeing God’s workings in our lives, then sharing the stories.
6. We learn to live a life of trusting the Lord, that brings security.
7. We discover that there is more or we have lost something and ask God for it and learn to release the grief of our hope differed, through tears and we persevere in our walk towards God, with weeping as we walk, and experience astonishing joy from God. 

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The work of art above is by Jean Shen.

NIV Footnotes:

a. Or Lord brought back the captives to
b. Or those restored to health
c. Or Bring back our captives

d. Or Will restore you fortunes