Bless Our

Places Of Blessing And Psalm 129

Psalm 129 reads as follows from the NIV version of the Bible:

1 They have greatly oppressed me from my youth—
let Israel say-

2 they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
but they have not gained the victory over me.

3 Plowmen have plowed my back
and made their furrows long.

4 But the LORD is righteous;
he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.

5 May all who hate Zion
be turned back in shame.

6 May they be like grass on the roof,
which withers before it can grow;

7 with it the reaper cannot fill his hands,
nor the one who gathers fill his arms.

8 May those who pass by not say,
“The blessing of the LORD be upon you;
we bless you in the name of the LORD.

The psalmist has been oppressed in cruel fashion, with wounds on his back literally or symbolically as the oppression can take different forms but it did involve cruelty.

The psalm places these oppressive people in the middle of things, rather than ostracizing them, saying that they be like grass on the roof that doesn’t get a chance to grow.

They are close to the nourishing rays of the sun, but the closeness isn’t enough as the blessings have been withdrawn from them.

You could picture a bustling city then, teaming with activity and optimism and with the fine grass growing in the good sun in the mid morning on the rooftops. So the vision is at first one of prosperity and a proximity to the prosperity.

One of the keys indications of this psalm, is that while the Lord is reversing potential prosperity for these oppressors, had this not happened, this prosperity is near by, right there, right in the middle of things where it can actually be experienced and actually be had, not on some distant hard to reach mountaintops but right on the roofs of the city symbolized by thriving growth on the rooftops right in the center of commerce and activity in the city.

Then the same type of scene is repeated in the final verses, where you can picture a happening city or big town where people as passerby’s extend the blessing of the Lord by saying, “The Lord be with you or the Lord bless you.” This is the kind of thriving scene for those who would be blessed where they would be interacting with the goodness of the Lord seen through others and their hand of blessing.

Again, the blessings, seen in and through the nearby and quite present voices of others, is  not in any way distant, unfindable or unapproachable. The places of blessing are quite close symbolized by the passerby’s who have the power to bless.

These verses might also be seen as applying to prayer, where the voice of prayer is like the voices of the passerby’s in this psalm, in that the voice of prayer can bring the blessings quite close and directly to those who are being blessed, even though in actuality they might be physically distant from the one praying, for the purposes of the blessing they are as close to the one praying as the individual in this psalm  would have been to the passerby’s  in the city.

So within prayer, the one praying can travel to the place of blessing, even if they are quite distant from the place, such as for example someone praying for people in another continent. Within the blessing of the prayer, there are as close as the passerby’s here in this psalm to the place of blessing. in a mysterious way, the one praying is a right on hand passerby to the place of blessing within the realms of the spirit.

If someone is praying for Africa from another area of the world, they are a passerby to the resultant place of blessing in Africa from the prayer. However, if they don’t call upon the Lord for this part of the world for the graces of the Lord in prayer, then they are not passerby’s to the specific places of blessings found in this region of Africa.. Someone else may hopefully fill that role as the passerby who gives the blessing, but this shouldn’t be presumed upon as well. But optimistically through prayer we can be visitors or passerby’s to places of blessing that are in the far regions from where we are through the gift and power of intercessory prayer.

The oppressors also are seen as close enough to the blessings where they can see it, feel it, experience it, but they just don’t get there as the blessings are withdrawn right within close by scenes of abundance and prosperity falling upon others in the form of blessings.

This psalm is talking about the absence of blessings rather than an outright curse on these oppressors where what they might have been so close to having withers away because of the lack of a blessing. They are in absentia from blessings that could have been theirs and in the meantime others nearby are getting these blessings so they see what could have been.

The withered grass isn’t picked, and isn’t touched, symbolizing that is it not touched by the hand of blessings even though it would have been in the proximity of this.

Paralleling this is the parable of the wheat and weeds in the Gospels, where the wheat and weeds co-exist but are only separated later.

The place of blessing would be among the fields of wheat, a key being to get there and stay there.

It may not always be wholly be a matter of right and wrong as sometimes situations that are stifling can interrupt the flow of grace and example of this might be a job that become very stifling to individual gifts and gifts can wither if they aren’t in the proper place or towards what could be the place of blessing for these individual gifts.

If I am a great singer and I never get to places where I can sing, this gift can have the aspect of withering to the point where I am not even aware of the gift.

The idea is maybe we can ask the Lord specifically to send blessings upon our gifts, which may be heavily underutilized.

This becomes a matter of discernment. One thing is to try and find something that is good and you can get on a roll with, where grace flows. If the situation doesn’t have that type of potential, where you can get on a roll, it may not be the place.

Then too much emphasis on what already had gone bad in the past can stifle the vision of the present and the good graces that might be found on the next wave.

You can allow yourself to see what this wave will bring, despite the disappointing results and failures of the past.

This psalm gives a different view in that it has the oppressors in close proximity to the good people, but not experiencing the goodness of the land which is right next to them.

This psalm stands out in that it does not give a full dichotomy between blessings and curse but more so just brings about what is viewed as the absence of grace.

At the same time, it brings about a picture of grace that is active and alive within the voices of the people and becomes a thriving presence within the community that eligible passerby’s can experience or participate in some way.

In the gospel of Luke, Chapter 17 verses 20 and 21 says,

20 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

It is not a matter of one location verses another location but a matter of the spiritual in finding the place of blessings so it needs first to be discerned spiritually and even the physically manifestations of the blessing, are derived from spiritual sources that could dry up if the Lord is displeased, as he was by the actions of the oppressors in this psalm and the blessings that otherwise would have come to them were halted and withdrawn.

Verse 4 is also a verse for pondering. The Lord has cut him from the cords of the wicked and set him in a place of blessing. In this case, it was clear cut that the wicked were wicked. In modern day terms, with so much information coming from so many sources, the delineation between those who are wicked and those who are not might be more easily lost and there needs to be caution as to possibibly losing the dividing line in certain areas and stepping over into the place of wickedness in part due to ignorance or being overly optimistic about not getting caught in its traps.

The ideal is to get into the places of blessing that are viewed in this psalm and to avoid getting out of or straying from these places of blessing.

These places of blessing are associated with a physical scene and place, but it has to be primarily spiritual in that, the wicked were in that same physical arena or places where blessings abounded, yet these blessings past them by because not how they were positioned physically but how they were positioned spiritually.

This psalm is consoling in that there is a good vision of thriving blessings manifested in the physical realms. It is also a warning to stay intact spiritually by not crossing in realms of evil where you can lose that place of blessing both in the spiritual and physical realms.

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