July 16, 2017 Eat the fruit of your labor

Reading: Hebrews 13, Proverbs 1-2 and Psalm 128

Scripture: Psalm 128, “Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children's children! Peace be upon Israel!”

Observation: After going over the reading together, my wife and I started talking about the entirety of this Psalm. We talk about the imagery and the even looked at pictures of some of the things that are mentioned in this Psalm. In this time of struggling and trying not to worry about how this or that was going to be paid, but as we try not to it looms heavier upon my mind.

Application: We spent time talking about this in the context of our family and were taking this and declaring it over our family. We are going to be blessed and eat of the labor of our hands and it will be well with us. My wife's comment about being a fruitful vine is to be fruitful as a vine you have to be pruned and then said “I don't like being pruned.” As we continued to talk we talked about how for a tree to be fruitful it also has to be pruned from the top so that it will focus on producing fruit on and on filling our children the olive shoots that spring up around the base of the tree. As we grow larger and stronger in the Lord and the Holy Spirit prunes out what should not be there we are able to give more to our children and raise them up to become fruit trees and vines of their own. Then in the end it echoes the earlier line about being blessed and we will see our children's children. We are blessed and we need to walk in it to see that fear also be faith and no longer worry about the little things in our lives. 

Prayer: Father I stand in awe of how you can pack so much into a small section of scripture. You are the one who takes away all fear and doubt, the righteous fear of you helps to lead me to faith. Lord I ask that you help us to hold onto the proper fear and to leave the worry and stress behind. Help me to raise up a family that want to honor you each day.