It Will Be Worth the Wait

Psalm 130

English Standard Version (ESV)

A Song of Ascents.

130 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!

2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;

6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.

8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+130&version=ESV)

I want us to notice something this morning, the Psalmist is stating that He will wait upon the Lord.  If that is the case then we can assume that at times we need to patiently wait on the Lord.  Many times we think our prayers are not answered or heard because of our inability to wait and see Him work. 

Let’s think on those lines for a moment.  Think about those miracles of Jesus.  How many years did many of them suffer before they were healed?  Some from birth and others for years.  Although His miracles were instantaneous they were a long time in coming.  We too need to wait on the Lord.  We need to keep our hope and trust in the One who has a steadfast love for each of us and is our redeemer. 

Seek Him and know that all is worth the wait.

Seeking Him with All My Heart,

Sheila

That All May Know

Psalm 129

English Standard Version (ESV)

A Song of Ascents.

129 “Greatly[a] have they afflicted me from my youth”—
    let Israel now say—

2 “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth,
    yet they have not prevailed against me.

3 The plowers plowed upon my back;
    they made long their furrows.”

4 The Lord is righteous;
    he has cut the cords of the wicked.

5 May all who hate Zion
    be put to shame and turned backward!

6 Let them be like the grass on the housetops,
which withers before it grows up,

7 with which the reaper does not fill his hand
 nor the binder of sheaves his arms,

8 nor do those who pass by say,
    “The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
    We bless you in the name of the Lord!”

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+129&version=ESV

Israel has been afflicted and continues to be afflicted but when they have called upon The Lord, He has delivered them.  Did He always deliver them immediately?  Did He allow them to wait, to be separated, to feel abandoned?  Yes, but He was always there for them.  He sent Christ into the world to redeem them yet they rejected Him.  How can that be? 

God used the trials and tribulations of the Israelites time after time to show that He was and is God.  The entire purpose of the Israelite people, God’s people, was to be missionaries to the entire world.  In I Samuel we see David as a youth, fighting against the Philistines.  David tells the Philistines, in I Samuel 17:46, why he is going to be successful over them.  1 Samuel 17:46, English Standard Version (ESV),

46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I+Samuel+17%3A46&version=ESV)

It is no different for us today.  We do not have to be descendants of the Israelite people to be chosen of God.  He used this nation to tell the world about Him and they did.  Today, if any of us have put your faith and trust in God, we are His children, His chosen, we too must share His message with the world.  All that happens to us in this life is for a reason.  That reason is that others may know Him.  Israel had many conflicts, heartaches, and disappointments and they continue to this very day. Yet, when they called upon the Lord, He delivered them and He will do the same for us.  Seek Him and know that He is God, our deliverer and all the earth will know as well.

Seeking Him with all my heart,

Sheila

God’s Blessings

Psalm 128

English Standard Version (ESV)

Blessed Is Everyone Who Fears the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

128 

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!

2 You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.

3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house; your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.

4 Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
 who fears the Lord.

5 The Lord bless you from Zion!  May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life!

6 May you see your children's children!
    Peace be upon Israel!

(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+128&version=ESV)

I don’t believe that what we have or don’t have in this world is an indication of how much God loves or blesses us.  You cannot measure God’s love and His blessings with money or things.  In fact He is very much against the thought of being lovers of money.  Jesus says in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A24&version=ESV)

However, God is all for us working, using the hands that He gave us to earn our keep in this world.  If you notice, the man in this passage clearly worked because it said that he ate the “fruit of his labor,” it said nothing about being a rich, fat glutton.  It said nothing about eating caviar or drinking the finest wine in town.  It speaks of sitting around the table with your family and enjoying a meal together.  It speaks of living to a ripe old age so that you can enjoy your grandchildren.  It speaks of family.

Often times we can get so caught up in the world of success that we forget about our family.  We forget about the important things of God and about our obligation to share with our children the love of God.  Many homes today are absent of a father or a mother because people put their focus on things and not on God and each other.

Many times people get confused with what it really means to be blessed by God.  When I lost my job several years ago due to budget cuts, some people believed it was because I was not doing the will of God.  That if I would just draw closer to God I would be blessed by Him.  When in fact, I had felt more in the will of God than I ever had doing the job that I did.  Every step of the way I felt He was guiding me and directing me.  Losing my job was not to me a sign that I had failed Him yet a friend told my husband that was exactly what was wrong.  To me, Psalm 128 counteracts that belief.  While I was without a job, God provided for our family, we were blessed.  We may not have had all the money we had been accustomed to but our bills were paid and there was still even money in savings.  This world is not about making money or seeing how much money we can save or spend, it is about using our gifts and talents to please and honor Him.  He will supply our needs and bless us but we need to put forth the effort to labor.  We were always intended to work, even in the Garden Adam and Eve had a job to do. 

Go forth into this world and work but as you do so, seek Him first, with all your heart, and then enjoy the fruit, that He allows you to harvest, with your family.

Seeking Him with all my heart,

Sheila

Whatever You Do

Psalm 127

English Standard Version (ESV)

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

127 

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.

2 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.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
    the fruit of the womb a reward.

4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children[a] of one's youth.

5 Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+127&version=ESV

The entire of theme of this passage is that what we do is in vain unless it is from the Lord and for His glory.  We can work hard morning to night but unless it has the Lord’s blessing, it is not worth doing, we will just be spinning our wheels.  Does that mean that there can’t be successful people in this world unless they are Christians?  That depends on how you define success!  I would have to say, “yes, that is what that means” because success in my eyes comes at the end of this life not during this life.  That is a hard concept to actually comprehend unless you know the reason for your existence.  We are here to serve Christ in whatever capacity that we exist.  If we do everything for our own gain then we are the ones spinning our wheels.

The last part of this chapter is at times hard for me to comprehend.  Take me for example, I was only able to bear two children and lost two children.  Some see that as a sign of weakness.  Other women are unable to bear any children.  Do they cause their spouse to not be blessed?  The answer to that question is, absolutely not.  When we look at our lives and consider that it is God who is in control of all things we realize that it is He who chooses where our blessings will come from.  I was blessed with two amazing daughters who have filled my life with joy.  They love the Lord and they serve Him.  I could stand at any gate with them and be blessed when my enemies try to push be over.  Yet, I know that those two daughters are not here because I willed them to be, if that were the case I would have at least two others.  Our daughters were given to us by the Lord for a purpose, to further His kingdom.  My husband doesn’t have to have full quiver of children to be blessed and neither do I.  What we do need to be blessed is to know that whatever we do, we don’t do it in vain.  That we live in the grace of our Lord, we thrive because of His mercy, and because of that we are blessed to call Him our Father.  As you seek Him today, know that whatever path you may take, whatever life might throw at you, whatever you do, do it for the glory of our Lord and Savior because any other way will be a waste of precious time on this Earth.

Seeking Him with all my heart,

Sheila