Please turn back to day 3 and read either translation of the psalm, giving special attention to verses 4-6. Today, we center on the statements in the last two verses. Does Psalm 126:5-6 sound more like a…
“hope (in the definite, Biblical sense – not the wishful, worldly sense); promise”
Complete the following according to the HCSB to confirm your answer. ‘Those who sow in tears “will” reap with shout of joy’ (v. 5).
‘Though one goes along weeping, carrying the bag of seed, he “will surely” come back with shouts of joy, carrying his sheaves.’ (v. 6).
Turn the following Scriptures around, listing the promise and the conditions of each:
Psalm 126:5
Promise: you will “reap with the shouts of joy”
Condition: if you “sow in tears”
Psalm 126:6
Promise: you will “come back with shouts of joy, carrying [your] sheaves”
Condition: if you “[go] along weeping, carrying the bag of seed.”
Please read Luke 8:11–15. What is the seed? “The Word of God”
Why don’t those depicted in verse 12 produce a crop? “The devil steals the seed before it can take hold. They never believe.”
Why don’t those depicted in verse 13 produce a crop? “In a time of testing they fall away.”
Why don’t those depicted in verse 14 produce a crop? “They are choked by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures, and don’t mature.”
On the other hand, why do those depicted in verse 15 produce a crop? “They hear the word, retain it, and persevere.”
By now, I imagine you can think of your own example. What is it?
“I don’t know, probably something about procrastination or computer games or maybe more selfless as a wife and mother. Self-control. Self-discipline.”
A harvest is never instant; it demands time. How does Galatians 6:9 convey the element of time in the process of harvest? “It will happen at the proper time.”
What part do you think faith and patience play in our wait as we obey God and look for the first sprouts of harvest?
Faith: “gives us confidence in a ‘when’ not an ‘if’”
Patience: “prevents resentment or doubt over the delay”
My Psalm 126 – “When God blessed us with an amazingly large buyout, we felt like we were dreaming. We rejoiced and gave thanks to God, Grandpa, and the market. Our friends marveled and praise God with us. God had blessed us immensely, and we were ecstatic. Restore our fortunes, Lord. Our investments have diminished like rivers in a drought. Now we have sorrow and worry, but we will have abundant joy.”
Dearest Rachel –
It seems crass sometimes to link one’s spirituality to one’s material fortunes. But I suppose this is why this psalm, and the analogy it contains, exists. When all one has is a bag of seed and an empty belly, it can be sad and painful to throw it into the wind to (hopefully) land in the soil and take root – especially during a time of history in which the results were left much more to chance (or rather, in the hands of one god or another) rather than agricultural science.
But this hand-to-mouth existence was a part of life; an analogy like this was used because it resonated with both the writer and his listeners. And concern about poverty and wealth are scattered throughout the scriptures; while Agur asks (in Proverbs 30) that God not make him so rich that he forgets about Him, he also requests that he not be left so poor that he feels the need to steal just to be fed, “and thus bring shame upon the name of the Lord.” Jesus may have claimed that the rich have a nearly-impossible time humbling themselves as to stoop through the needle’s eye that is the door to heaven, but the poor have their own challenges in focusing on Him, too. “Morals?” they ask, “nah, I cahn’t afford ’em, guv’nah.”
To be honest, we were never in either situation, and while we did get to the point where we no longer needed to worry much about finances, we’d learned enough from our days of wanting to know how to respond in those of plenty. And while I wish you’d been around to enjoy the latter so much more, you at least were here long enough to see the harvest come in, and just get the barest taste of it before being overwhelmed by the abundance of heaven itself, which is so far beyond what we could possibly hope for here on earth as to make this insignificant.
Letters to Rachel 