7. Blessing From Zion; Prosperity In Jerusalem

Psalm 128:  How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!  You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.  How joyful and prosperous you will be!  Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.  Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.  That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him.  May the Lord continually bless you from Zion.  May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.  May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.  May Israel have peace!

It is so hard to imagine God’s omniscience and omnipresence.  It is another of those infinite things that we humans can’t really wrap our finite minds around.  In the Old Testament, Zion was where God resided so to speak.  In Psalm 76 we are told where He is honored, where His name is great and where He lives and makes His home.

Psalm 76: 1,2 God is honored in Judah; his name is great in Israel.  Jerusalem is where he lives;  Mount Zion is his home.

So to be blessed from Zion, is to be blessed from where God resides.  As we’ve talked about more than once, He lives in you!  Then maybe we can read that statement this way, may the Lord continually bless you from your life and in your life! 

Almost every single day I will be able to see or feel or experience a blessing from God in my life.  It may be as simple as keeping me safe through the day or as intricate as working in my attitude and heart to remind me He is there!  When I go through a dry period where I don’t hear from Him, I’ll simply ask Him a question.  Something like, Lord I know you are right here and are always with me, and You are always working.  I know that!  But I’m not hearing from you.  Would you please show me or remind me in some way that you are there?  It’s amazing that when I allow MY sensors to be looking for Him, I will end up seeing Him.  From His beautiful creation that we live in to situations and people He uses to let me see that He is still at work. 

In the “Sermon On The Mount,” Jesus would often say, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  I think that message can help us to remind ourselves, that He is speaking and we need to be opening our “spiritual ears” to hear or see Him.

The writer of Hebrews, in verses 22 – 24 of chapter 12 reminds us that we are already citizens of the heavenlies by accepting Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives.  And we are with the Father through our mediator Jesus, who is there now with us! 

No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.

Talk about difficult to wrap your mind around, but how exciting to realize He is blessing us from Zion or the heavenly Jerusalem.  In Revelation 21 verses 1-4 John talks about the New Jerusalem that we are already a part of. 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.*  He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

That, my friends, is what we all have waiting for us!  And that will be for eternity!  Our lives here on earth are just a blink of an eye and are only to prepare us for the experience in the New Jerusalem to spend forever with our Lord Jesus.  My spirit looks forward to that time!  So the New Jerusalem WILL prosper for eternity which is as long as I’ll live.  That is an exciting promise and blessing of God.

So why do we still go through the things we do?  Hurting ourselves, hurting others, not being obedient to God’s Word?  The answer is…the flesh!  From the moment we are born alive as physical beings, the flesh has its own sinful desires and our soul has not yet come alive.  It is when we finally have an awakening of the spirit, and an experience with our Heavenly Father, that everything God does and says starts to make sense.  We can be aware of Christ and even claim Jesus as our Savior…but until we actually crucify our flesh, die to that selfish earthly desire and allow our spirit to commune with the Living God and make Him Lord, then He will be able to effectively get our attention and use our lives to His Glory.

6. The Lord’s Blessings

Psalm 128:  How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!  You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.  How joyful and prosperous you will be!  Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.  Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.  That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him.  May the Lord continually bless you from Zion.  May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.  May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.  May Israel have peace!

We have talked already about fear and awe.  There are lots of real fears that I have had in the past including the fear of failure.  That has probably been my greatest fear in life.  And that goes back to performance based living.  The fear of failure was pretty much in every part of my life.  Fear of failing at marriage, parenting, friendship, my job, and living a Christ like life.  And as I feared it…I lived it.  I set myself up for failure in that fear.

Other fears I had include the fear of the unknown, fear of heights, and the fear of being found out. 

As a kid growing up I feared my parents’ wrath.  That’s why I wanted to “perform” in positive ways.  When I was out playing at the neighbor’s house down the street, I remember mom would call me home.  We lived in a pretty quiet neighborhood, so I heard her most of the time.  On those rare occasions that I didn’t hear her, she would yell a few minutes later and call me by my first and middle name.  When that happened, there was no messing around…I headed home right then and there!  If I didn’t hear mom a second time, dad would come out to the front porch and yell my name.  If and when that happened, I was already in trouble and it was time to high tail it home.  That was out of fear of wrath.  There was respect, but more fear of misbehaving and punishment.

As a side note about my fear of heights, and an example of God’s sense of humor, one of the first jobs I had after my experience hitting bottom was helping part time at a roofing company.  It was my job to climb on roofs and take measurements.  The first roof I climbed on was a two story building at an elementary school.  I couldn’t help but laugh as God conquers things in my life one at a time.  I’m still not crazy about heights, but I don’t have the fear that I once had.

Before hitting the bottom in life and my spiritual awakening, I didn’t have the fear of the wrath of God.  I knew that as a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, I was going to spend eternity with Him.  But I didn’t allow Him to change me on the inside.  I guess you can say that I thought I had a get out of “hell” free card.  So instead, I kept living a life of failure.  As we talked about earlier, I failed in my relationship with Him, in my marriage, at parenting, in my ministries and my friendships.  There were times that I remember telling my wife that I didn’t deserve her and that I felt like a failure.  She had no idea why I would say something like that and would do her best to encourage me.  It was only after hitting the bottom and had that spiritual awakening that I realized there was a strength that I always had available to me in Christ, but previously had no idea how to tap into it.  There are circumstances that I have to live out due to the choices I made.  That can be called the wrath of God or can be looked at as God’s amazing pursuit of me.  He loved me so much that He didn’t want me to continue living the way I was.  He had, and has, a better plan!  I had allowed the enemy to use me and my fears for his success.  Unfortunately, Satan won a battle in my life for a long time.  His ultimate victory in my life was the destruction of my marriage and family.  My friendships were altered, ministries were put on hold and for a while and my spirit was crushed. 

Let’s go back to the first part of this verse.  “That is the Lord’s blessing…”  What is the Lord’s blessing?  To enjoy the fruit of your labor, be joyful and prosperous, that your wife will be a fruitful grapevine and your kids like vigorous young olive trees.  Men it doesn’t get any better than that here on earth!  And all you have to do is be in awe of the Lord and follow His ways.  Allow God to awaken your spirit.  Is that a promise of a trouble free existence?  No!  What it is a promise of is that, as you give all that you are and all that you have to Him and serve your family, He is there encouraging you and going through it all with you.  And remember it’s not by your strength that you will be able to make it.  In fact, we are reminded of that several times in scripture.  In John 15:5, for example, Jesus tells us that He is vine and we are the branches and then answers the question, what can we do apart from Him?

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit (aka blessing). For apart from me you can do nothing.”      

I hope you are hearing my passion in this because God has so much He wants to give you, if you let Him. 

A lot of people think that because a neighbor, friend or family member has financial freedom, or toys, or a big home, that God has really blessed them.  Possibly true, but not necessarily, and probably more times than not, God is not a factor in what they “have.”  There are those followers of Christ who have been blessed by God financially and materially.  But when we see their “stuff” and the envy and jealousy kicks in we ask…why not me?  “Stuff” does not bring joy and happiness.  You say, “Yea well try me.”  Here’s what “stuff” brings…responsibility, maintenance, and possibly a fear of losing it.  Now, before you start sending letters telling me, well God has blessed you with “stuff,” I do realize that hard work can lead to being blessed by God with stuff.  Then it is up to you how you use it for His glory. 

I want to tell you about a family who has been blessed by God with stuff and how they have used it to God’s glory!  Kevin and Maria Harbert are owners of the company SandSational Sparkle.  They sell colored sand to be used in Sand Ceremonies at weddings.  They also sell containers and other items related to a wedding ceremony or reception.  If you would like to know more about the Sand Ceremony there will be a special post a little later titled “Sand Ceremony.”  Anyway, the Lord has blessed their business and lives.  I have known Kevin and Maria for about 25 years.  In an incredible God story, after my tumble to the bottom, they contacted me to visit them and a counselor at Christian Life Ministries in their area.  I did not have a job or steady income, so I wouldn’t be able to make the trip.  Their response was the perfect example of Christ working through them.  They flew me out from California to South Dakota at their cost, allowed me to stay in their home, drove me to the counseling appointments (one hour each way), paid for the counseling and supplies, fed me, and paid for most everything during my three and a half week stay.  Then they blessed me with a cash gift as I left.  I don’t know how many thousands of dollars they ended up spending on me, but it was the most significant life changing month in all of my then 51 years on earth!  What an investment they made!  They used what God has blessed them with to bring enrichment and a stronghold of God in the life of a Brother in Christ.  It was also a wonderful bonding time with the family.  Their teenage daughter Paige was also an example of Christ as she made room for me, encouraged me and really made me feel like a part of the family.  The following year I was blessed by the family again as they flew me back to South Dakota to be a part of Paige’s high school graduation Blessing Service at their home.  They understand their purpose for what God blesses them with.  I have experienced it first hand, more than once.  I praise God for His blessing on their lives, as they blessed me with their fruit.  Does all of that make sense?  In other words, use what God has blessed you with to bless others.  You are Blessed to Bless!

5. Family Fruit

Psalm 128:  How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!  You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.  How joyful and prosperous you will be!  Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.  Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.  That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him.  May the Lord continually bless you from Zion.  May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.  May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.  May Israel have peace!

This is an awesome picture that is painted with words.  Keep in mind this is for the Godly man who fears the Lord and follows His ways.  The two different kinds of fruit represented include grapes and olives.  The wife is depicted to be like a fruitful grapevine.  I find it interesting that a grapevine has lots of branches that go in all directions while producing a delicious sweet fruit that can be used for eating, juiced for drinking, or fermented for wine.  Like a grapevine a woman can be fruitful in lots of areas in life.  In our marriage I have to give my ex-wife incredible credit.  She was a wife, a mother, a teacher, a friend, and she was involved in women’s ministries at church.  And she did everything well.  She was a fruitful grapevine in spite of my foolishness and lack of commitment.  Her heart was and is in tune with her God.  My wife brought a sweetness to our family that could only have been from a blessed woman committed to a relationship with her Lord and her family. 

I mention all of this to say that I can only imagine what God could have done through our marriage if my heart had been as in tune with God and my wife the same way.  The hard learned lesson for me here is in order for that grapevine to be flourishing, it needs watering.  The challenge men is for us to make sure the grapevine in our life remains nourished with the love that will keep her thriving in our relationship and our home.  The old saying is that it takes two, but in a healthy marriage it takes three, Husband, Wife and the Triune God.  The grapevine was created to produce grapes and its vine branches spread out.  As the grapevine is fruitful and flourishing she, the wife, is productive, rich, abundant, rewarding, and successful.  Bottom line is that she is doing all that she has been created to do. 

A vigorous young olive tree is strong!  Olive trees in general are robust.  The first sign to Noah that the flood waters were receding was that a dove brought an olive branch to the ark.  The garden of Gethsemane was an olive grove full of trees.  Oil from olives was used for anointing, cooking, fuel for lanterns and as an offering many times combined with flour. 

As a child I remember our next door neighbor had 3 big strong olive trees.  This neighbor family was good friends with our family.  They had three daughters with the youngest about 4 years older than me and in fact the girls would often babysit my sister and me.  Once a year both families would get together to pick olives.  It was tedious work and you had to watch out where you stepped because if the olives came out of the tree and you stepped on them, they would stain your shoes and anywhere else you walked.  Once all the olives were picked they were taken to a location to be cured.  Not that they were sick or anything, but they would be soaked in a salted solution.  When they came back…it made all the work worthwhile!  They were very tasty as long as you didn’t eat too many.  I think the Holy Spirit can do that in our own life as well.  As we allow the Spirit to soak in our lives and be that “salted solution,” our flavor to the Father becomes that much better.  Plus we can be a better example of Him to those we come in contact with.  To me it’s another example of the Spiritual awakening I’m talking about.  As an olive has a bitter and unpleasant flavor right off the tree, we too have a bitter and unpleasant nature in our fleshly life.  When the Holy Spirit comes in and “cures” us, like that cured olive in the salted solution, we can be a wonderful taste of God in this world.    

Romans 11 talks about the family tree of Abraham and how that tree was the chosen “tree” of God.  But some of the Israelites, Abraham’s descendants, broke away from God not believing that Jesus Christ was the messiah.  At the same time the Gentiles were made right with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  As the Gentiles believed that Jesus was God’s Son, they became a part of God’s family.  As chapter 11 verse 17 puts it…

 But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree.

How awesome to receive the blessing God promised Abraham!  Men, we have the responsibility to be that example of Christ for our kids.  To be the spiritual leaders that they, our children, want to grow up and be like.  So instead of the sentence, “he/she is just like their father,” being derogatory, it would be an incredible statement of praise!  They would want to be olive branches strong and mighty in the family tree.  Women, in your role as the fruitful grapevine, you can come along side your husband and strongly support him in his walk with Christ.  His roots need nourishment and watering just like the fruitful grapevine that you are. 

As I live life day by day, I see only one way to live it.  For me, that is spending the first part of every day in a quiet time with God, praying, reading His Word, journaling and refreshing my spirit.  Then taking the Lord with me everywhere I go and maintaining communication with Him throughout the day.  As we talked about earlier, I am the temple of the Lord and He lives in me, so wherever I am, there He is also.  So why not have fellowship all day long?!  I have found that to be essential in my walk with Christ.  To spend time with Him all day…everyday!  He truly wants to be your best friend.  In my spiritual awakening I believe that a daily commitment to Him would help you to be the husband to the fruitful grapevine and the daddy to the vigorous young olive trees that you are called to be.  Your roots as Spiritual leader in your family will go deeper and you will receive all the blessings that are talked about in Psalm 128.

4. God’s Rewards

Psalm 128: How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!  You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.  How joyful and prosperous you will be!  Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.  Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.  That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him.  May the Lord continually bless you from Zion.  May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.  May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.  May Israel have peace!

Now you’re talking…enjoying the fruit of labor and being prosperous.  But before you get too excited and start looking at possibilities that are not promised, let’s look at what the Psalmist is actually saying. 

As a farmer enjoys the fruit of his or her labor, they reap the harvest that they have planted.  Nowhere in the Bible is there a promise of financial prosperity and abundance of physical wealth.  I myself have wanted to see that promise and prepare myself for those rewards.  Especially when I found myself with a few dollars in the bank, a room to live in as provided by a friend and no prospect for work.  Believe me I was ready, willing and able to accept the physical and financial prosperity that I would find in the pages of the Bible.  There was no such promise.  Believe it or not, there was something much more valuable that I found.  I found God’s provisions for me.   

The challenge is to see wealth, riches, success and abundance, versus necessities, requirements and enough.  There are people, including followers of Christ, who have been blessed big by physical wealth and possessions.  They are responsible to the Lord as to how they use their riches for the glory of God.  But to be consumed by misperceived notions that God says that when you follow all His ways, you will be monetarily wealthy…I believe is damaging to you. 

Unless you are a farmer, the fruit of your labor isn’t necessarily actual fruit.  The fruit of your labor in the workforce is your paycheck.  Now depending on choices you have made, that paycheck can be a step to prosperity, or can be a step in the opposite direction.

I remember as a kid I had chores to do.  They included cleaning up after the dog and burying it out in what dad called our back 40.  It was about a 10 foot by 20 foot garden area.  Once a week I would clean up after the dog, then mow the lawn and put the clippings out by the back fence.  My sister and I also had to do dishes after dinner and I had to keep my room clean.  During the fall I had to rake leaves too.  For my efforts I received $3.50 a week.  That was the fruit of my labor and to a kid that was riches!  I really didn’t enjoy the work, but I really enjoyed getting my allowance.  My parents loved me to a point of asking me to be responsible for certain jobs or chores, and in return I got paid!

  

God says He loves us so much that He provides.  Some of you might be asking, what does He provide?  That would open the door for me to sarcastically say…well how about air to breathe for one, water to sustain life.  Okay, enough of my sarcasm, but the elements of life are here on the earth that He created!  In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus is teaching about how valuable we are to God.  And we shouldn’t worry about the necessities of life.  Verse 25 starts off with Jesus saying;

"That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?  Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?  Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?"

 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing,  yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.  And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’  These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.  Seek the Kingdom of God* above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today."

So our joy and prosperity comes from having what we need and that comes from the Father.  Enjoy the fruit of your labor.  In Colossians 3 we are told to dedicate our labor, whatever that is, to the Lord. Verses 23 and 24 say: “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.”

That inheritance is much much better than any allowance you or I may have received.  You’ll be surprised how different you will feel at work.  I know I was!  Whether you currently work for an employer you don’t respect or have all the admiration in the world for, or you are self employed, we are instructed to take the hours we are at work and turn them over to the Master we are truly serving and let Him work through us.  I believe that will bring true joy into your life.  The pit of the fruit will be much smaller…and the fruit will be that much sweeter.

In Psalm 34 David sings about how to live a life that is long and prosperous.  Verse 12 starts out asking the question: 

Does anyone want to live a life

that is long and prosperous?

Then keep your tongue from speaking evil

and your lips from telling lies!

Turn away from evil and do good.

Search for peace, and work to maintain it.

The true prosperity you will receive by living Christ like will be the joy God puts in your heart.  That will be your wealth.  Allow His love to flood every part of you.

3. Joy Filled Fear

Psalm 128: How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!  You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.  How joyful and prosperous you will be!  Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.  Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.  That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him.  May the Lord continually bless you from Zion.  May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.  May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.  May Israel have peace!

How do you put joyful and fear together?  Well the word fear doesn’t mean things like terror, fright, alarm or apprehension.  The word fear is more of an awe of who God is and what God can do.  In other words, how joyful am I, in awe of the Lord, as I follow His ways!  That would be Awe with a capital A.  It’s still difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that the creator of all of the galaxies, planets and universe wants a relationship with me.  He created the heavens and the earth. 

And let me pause right here and say, I have joined the ranks of believers of the big bang.  Now hear me out for a moment.  When God SPOKE the world into existence, He created something from nothing!  Can you imagine the sound it must have made when it appeared?  I believe that would have been a really BIG Bang! 

So as we look at the Old Testament, nobody was able to be in God’s presence except Moses.  When he came down from Mount Sinai, he had a glow from God’s glow-ry.  But the rest of the time God hid himself in a cloud, in a burning bush and wasn’t able to be seen.  In the New Testament, when Paul was knocked down by a bright light and blinded, it was the presence of the Resurrected Christ.  Talk about AWE!  Yet He invites us into His presence anytime anywhere through prayer.  So that is the Awe I’m talking about.   

By the way joyful does not always equal happy either.  You can be joyful and in awe of God, but not feel very happy. 

As I tumbled to the bottom after losing my family and my job, it took a while, but my heart and my mind became aware and in complete awe of God.  And though I was joyful that I had finally succumbed to His desire for my life, I was not in a happy place.  I was relieved that I had started the process of being broken of my patterns.  But during my darkest days of brokenness the word happy wasn’t really a part of my vocabulary. 

It was only after my complete brokenness and spiritual awakening that joyfulness and awe of the Lord materialized in my life.  The second part of verse 1 says, “all who follow His ways!”  Once I was on my way to the bottom, that’s when the duh factor kicked in and I knew I needed to follow His ways.  Does that mean living a performance based life for God?  The answer to that is an emphatic no!  Living a performance based life just sets you up for failure.  Because neither you nor I will ever be able to live up to the standards set before us.  As I tried, in the flesh, I failed.  And when I failed I became disappointed in myself.  And when I was disappointed in myself I didn’t like myself, let alone love myself. 

In Luke chapter 10 an expert in religious law had asked Jesus what the most important commandment was.  Jesus then asked the man what the Law of Moses said and in verse 27; The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”

So what does that look like?  Well if I couldn’t love myself, how is it possible to love God, my wife, my family or my neighbor?  It was, and is impossible.  Loving the Lord my God with all of me is the awakening I’m talking about.  A spiritual awareness that He is alive, loving me, living in me and we are walking and talking all the time.  Then I can love myself, and my neighbor. We should definitely be concerned about how we live our life.  But if that’s the only thing you focus on, you will be miserable.  And I was miserable.  Miserable for keeping the secrets that I kept, miserable for failing my marriage vows, miserable for letting down my heavenly Father, my family and my friends, all while hiding behind a mask that everything was okay or FINE.  I was at a conference on relationship addiction and the acronym of fine was given as; Fearful Insecure Neurotic Evasive.  I’ve heard others too but that really spoke to me!  Because I was all of the above. 

If you live a performance based life, you are living under the law and you will be miserable.  Christ came to fulfill the law so that we now live under Grace.  So if you do love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind, He will be on your mind all the time and your heart will be filled with the desire to hang around with Him.  You will love Him with a love that surpasses any earthly love you can think of.  After all, as a follower of Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in you and everywhere you go, He goes.  Everything you do, He does.  For many, that’s a very scary thought.  It is actually horrifying to me to think of some of the things that I put the Holy Spirit through in the ways I lived my life before hitting bottom. 

Not a day goes by that I don’t praise the Lord and thank Him for His forgiveness of my past.  Here is the most incredible part of that.  When He forgave me of the past, the very first time I confessed and repented, He forgot about it.  He cast it as far as the east is from the west.  So when I come to Him and praise Him for forgiving my past, He just says, “I have no idea what you are talking about, but you are welcome.  I love you my child!”  God loves with a reckless kind of love we can’t even imagine with our finite minds and hearts.  His reckless love alone should give us an incredible amount of joy and put an awe or fear of the Lord in our hearts so that we will have the strongest desire to follow His ways.             

2. The Break Of Dawn

Job 33: 27-28  He will declare to his friends, ‘I sinned and twisted the truth, but it was not worth it.  God rescued me from the grave, and now my life is filled with light.’

About five months after finally hitting bottom I heard Him say in my heart, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”  Words I really needed to hear at the time.  I was lying in bed and as I opened my eyes, I literally could see nothing!  Not even the hand directly in front of my face.  I was in the midst of darkness personally.  Financially I had just a few dollars to my name.  A week or two later He said, “Don’t let the break of dawn affect our relationship in a negative way.”  By this time I had started a quiet time in the morning that consisted of lots of prayer, a daily bible reading program and journaling.  So I made a promise that I wouldn’t let the break of dawn affect our relationship in a negative way!

Then six months after hitting bottom, I was beginning to see the break of dawn in ways that included personal finances and part time employment.  It was then that I heard Him say, “128.”  That’s it!  Just “128.”  The day I heard this was January 23rd and I thought that 128 might have meant January 28th.  So I waited the few days to see what God had planned to do on 1/28.  The day went by with no great occurrence or revelation.  I questioned Him, in prayer, what 128 might mean.  Then, again in my heart, He said, “Psalm 128.”  I read it and wept.  It seemed like a promise that was meant to give me hope that restoration with the family was possible.  I can definitely see my ex-wife as a fruitful grapevine.  With 3 grown children and 2 little ones that we were in the process of adopting, I could see them as vigorous young olive trees around the table.  My ex-wife has since adopted the kids as a single mom.  A year after reading Psalm 128 I’m not positive it was a promise for me because of the previous choices I’ve made.  I still believe that God can do anything, but I definitely feel like Psalm 128 is a message that I can share with all men, single or married.  And not only men, but women too.  My prayer is that men and women might see the following pages as encouragement for what God wants to do in your current marriage, or what He has planned for you in the future, if you are single.  I would never want any man to have to go through what I have gone through.  Greater still, I don’t wish what my ex-wife has gone through on any woman.  And when it comes right down to it, I don’t wish the pain of what our adult children have had to endure on anybody.  But for me, the experience of growth and healing has been priceless, I can’t imagine not going through it.  The only thing I would have preferred is for it to have happened 30 years ago.  If this can help one person, it is a blessing to have been able to share the information on the following posts.  Praise be to God.     

1. Falling To The Bottom

Psalm 88: 16-18 Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me. Your terrors have paralyzed me.   They swirl around me like floodwaters all day long.  They have engulfed me completely.   You have taken away my companions and loved ones.  Darkness is my closest friend.

My trip to the bottom was 30 years in the making.  Back in June of 1979 I married my high school sweetheart.  From before our marriage, I carried secrets of wounds in my life that I didn’t even know I had.  Other secrets I carried that I did know about were those of infidelity.  Prior to our wedding and then through our nearly thirty year marriage I had cheated on my wife.  I had a pattern of lies, and infidelity.  It would come and go in waves.  There would be lying and cheating, then fidelity.  While in these patterns I had no idea the internal issues that caused me to lead such a despicable double life.  I know for a fact that I truly loved my wife.  The fact is that to this day, I still love my now ex-wife with all that I am. 

There were warning signs in the past.  A few years before I was caught a second time, I had a dream that shook me up.  In this dream I was driving my car up a road called “Zion Street” near the town that I live in.  Interesting street name, huh?  I approached a corner I had been to many times.  In fact on the southwest corner of this intersection was the local Armory.  I leaned over to change the radio, as I did, something in that corner of the intersection caught my attention.  I looked in its direction toward the ground.  There was a post.  From this point on in the dream it was all slow motion.  Slowly I gazed up the post and saw His feet pierced to the post by a large rusty nail.  As I continued my upward motion I knew it was Jesus on the cross.  There was his body, the side where the sword had stabbed Him, then up to his arms stretched out with His hands nailed to the cross.  I kept looking up and when I got to His face, He was bowed looking at the ground with the crown of thorns still causing blood to ooze from His head.  He slowly moved His head up until our eyes met!  As they met I could see the pain in His face as if He was saying to me, “I died for you once already, why do you keep putting me back up here on the cross?  Let me LIVE in your life!”  He and the cross then, still in slow-motion, fell forward.  As He hit the ground face first I woke up in a cold sweat!  That apparently was not enough to shake me from the patterns I had developed in my life.  Those choices that I had been making, and were caused by a number of issues continued.  Even though I had tried to reverse those patterns and choices of the past, I was trying to do it by my own flesh.  You can’t do spiritual things by the flesh!  I found out the hard way. 

The wounds in my life included an emotionally absent father, an over bonded mother and sexual molestation by a male friend of mine as a young teenager.  These, along with the wounded heart that we all are born with, led to many poor decisions and numerous occasions of infidelity during my marriage.  I’m not blaming my choices totally on these wounds, but they definitely contributed to my patterns.  The affairs were ways that I used to numb a pain that, through the years, I didn’t know existed.  After being caught for a third time in our 29 year marriage, I finally realized “I have a problem!”  Through biblical counseling I found out it was a serious “spiritual problem!”  The problem I had had all along, led to other troubles.  These troubles now started my tumble to the bottom.  I lost my job in a career that I had for over 30 years, my wife filed for divorce, my family was devastated, and ministries that I had with people who had trusted me and even looked up to me had been destroyed along with those friendships.  It was like free-falling into a dark hole.  But when I hit bottom, I was NOT in Wonderland or Narnia.  I was in darkness and silence. 

I was exactly where God wanted me to be a long time ago.  I was completely BROKEN!

While my trip to the bottom was because of lies, secrets and infidelity, there are other ways to get there.  Addictions, bad habits, poor spending choices and other self-centered patterns that satisfy a need that maybe you don’t even know about.

The Bible tells us in Psalm 90:8 in a prayer from Moses: “You spread out our sins before you—our secret sins—and you see them all.”

My darkest secrets were out and my darkest days were ahead of me.  And God loves me so much, that He finally brought me down to a place where He could actually begin a healing in me, as well as restoration and renewal. 

God tells us that nothing is secret from Him, nor are our intentions.  In 1^st Corinthians 4:5b, Paul says, “For He will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives.”  

The bottom, for me, included humbling myself before family and friends and confessing my sins, asking a close friend for a place to stay, and receiving divorce papers from the woman in my life that I truly love.  She did the only thing that seemed possible for her to be able to survive and move on.  Understandably she was tired of the lies and cheating.  There was no other way. 

I had a lot of work ahead of me.  The exciting thing about the bottom for me, if you want to call it exciting, is that God knows His plan for me and He had to get my attention to be able to work that plan in and through me. 

By hitting bottom I had nowhere to look except UP!  And I found myself getting immersed in His Word, praying and reading books that would point me in His direction.  As I grew sensitive to His voice, I actually heard in my heart things He would say to me.  I’ve always been skeptical at someone who said, “God told me…” or “I heard from God…” until I started hearing from Him myself.

--To be continued--

Psalm 128 A Call To A Spiritual Awakening

PSALM 128

A CALL TO A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

How joyful are those who fear the Lord, all who follow His ways!  You will enjoy the fruit of your labor.  How joyful and prosperous you will be!  Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home.  Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.  That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him.  May the Lord continually bless you from Zion.  May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live.  May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.  May Israel have peace!

INTRODUCTION:  The first time the Lord brought this Psalm to my attention was after I hit bottom. 

Have you ever been there?  To the bottom I mean.  The scummy, slippery, yucky bottom.  Have you been to a point in your life where you have nothing except God?  I think the absolute bottom can be different things for different people.  It doesn’t have to be losing everything and becoming jobless and homeless, although it could take that.  It did for me.  Whatever “bottom” is in your life, if you haven’t ever been there, Praise The Lord!  I hope you never have to go there.  But imagine you do end up going there.  It’s a place I wouldn’t wish on anybody and at the same time a place I think everybody should be aware of.  Having been there myself, I would not exchange the experience for anything. 

It’s said, you can’t sing the blues unless you have had the blues.  I’m not sure I completely agree with that.  After having the blues, I think it’s easier to sing the blues with feeling as you go back and reflect on those times.  

While I have been a believer in Christ for over 30 years, I have only been a sold-out follower and disciple of Jesus since hitting bottom in July of 2008.  So if you can be a Christian, but still be lost, that’s where I have been. 

In the upcoming days weeks and months the postings that I make will depict the ugliness that caused me to hit bottom, but will also show God’s reckless pursuit of me, a man who loved God, but had a lot of issues I wasn’t even aware of.  Let’s start with the trip down…..

Coming soon

Introduction

Well I have been encouraged by several people to start a blog.  So here it is.  Over the past two years my life has made the biggest changes in the over 50 years that I have been on this planet.  God has seen it necessary to take me all the way to the bottom so that He could get my attention for what He really has for my life.  Throughout this blog, I hope to share with you the ways He has shown me His mercy and grace.  How He has grown me, changed me and how He wants us men to be what He created us to be.
In the coming days I will be posting my writing, "Psalm 128 A Call To A Spiritual Awakening."  Primarily written for men to be able to "get it" before they have to hit bottom.  Although I believe women can be encouraged as well.  My prayer is that through whatever God does with this blog, He will be glorified and that even one man might come to that "Spiritual Awakening" that it takes to be what God calls us to be.  
I have found over these past couple of years that Christianity is not a part of life...it IS Life!