Bless This

Great Blessings and Psalm 144

Psalm 144 reads as follows from the New King James version of the Bible:

1 Blessed be the LORD my Rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle—
2 My lovingkindness and my fortress,
My high tower and my deliverer,
My shield and the One in whom I take refuge,
Who subdues my people[a] under me.

3 LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him?
4 Man is like a breath;
His days are like a passing shadow.

5 Bow down Your heavens, O LORD, and come down;
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
6 Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
Shoot out Your arrows and destroy them.
7 Stretch out Your hand from above;
Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters,
From the hand of foreigners,
8 Whose mouth speaks lying words,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

9 I will sing a new song to You, O God;
On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You,
10 The One who gives salvation to kings,
Who delivers David His servant
From the deadly sword.

11 Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners,
Whose mouth speaks lying words,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood—
12 That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth;
That our daughters may be as pillars,
Sculptured in palace style;
13 That our barns may be full,
Supplying all kinds of produce;
That our sheep may bring forth thousands
And ten thousands in our fields;
14 That our oxen may be well laden;
That there be no breaking in or going out;
That there be no outcry in our streets.
15 Happy are the people who are in such a state;
Happy are the people whose God is the LORD!

A pivotal verse is this psalm is verse 7 which says.

7 Stretch out Your hand from above

Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters,
From the hand of foreigners,”

The great waters in this verse seem to represent danger and a situation that overwhelms or is just gigantic in proportion to David’s life.

From David’s points of view he in a situation that where the difficulties are far greater than his available means to deal with them on his own.

He needs the Lord to intervene and come to his rescue. When it says, “stretch out Your hand from above,” this is asking that the Lord intervene and interject his presence into these great waters of difficulty.

At a personal level, great waters could represent an overwhelming temptation or difficulty.  David’s personal relationship to the Lord was one where he would sing to the Lord and this was a great offering on his part.

Today, people may be in the “great waters of financial difficulty,” and they need the Lord to stretch his hand into the situation and bring them out of the great waters into the great blessings.

Or it might be the “upon great waters of relationship difficulties,” or the “upon great waters of the city itself having troubles” or the great waters of a lack of prosperity and safety and comfort.”

Lots of troubles, temptations and difficulties can fall into the image of great waters.

But because of the greatness, the troubles can dissipate or disappear over the great waters. They can be vanquished or faded into nothingness as they contrast over the great waters.

The greatness brings about another portion, which also is great but in the form of blessings.

It is interesting that from this psalm that the Lord can turn what is a matter of great difficulty and then bring about great blessings.

The great blessings mentioned in this psalm, are not necessarily what should automatically be sought in prayer Small blessings are important and can mean a lot.

At the same time the main point is that it is the Lord himself who does want to give these great blessings. This might be more big picture blessings or big answers to prayer, where there from the great waters of difficulties someone might not feel right in asking for great blessings. But it is important to be aware of great blessings as a possibility in that this may be what the Lord wants.

It is interesting that people sometimes put a strong emphasis on one area such as wealth accumulation which is indeed pictured in this psalm. But for this too work the overall state of affairs has to be good, there is a dependency of that. One could obtain wealth and still be in the midst of chaos of any type.

There is a dependency of the hand of the Lord for the overall conditions out there, and this was true even for David, who was King and was well into the realm of the blessings of the Lord.

You can’t isolate away to only your own thinking and then expect everything to be right there for you in all other areas without the grace of the Lord being present in all these other possible fields of endeavor. This is why the understanding is that the Lord comes first, as these other things, if they are there are only there out of his grace and mercy in the first place.

Nothing is going to supersede the hand of the Lord or the intervention of the Lord, as this is the source.

In nature sunlight can’t be replaced with another equal intervention of light.

There isn’t going to be another intervening presence other than the hand of the Lord that is going to get these blessings and secure them with peace…

We can’t just be looking a small things and potentially miss bigger picture or big picture blessings because it might be that the Lord wants great blessings and also great prayers, which might be intercessory and asking for a lot but there is the call to great prayers even right from the great waters of difficulty.

The Lord’s desire to bless greatly wasn’t thwarted by David’s distress signals from his own great waters of difficulty.

There is the call to seek, understand and call upon the great blessings of the Lord even from the great waters of difficulty and to realize that greatness is all around when calling upon the Lord.

It might not be that things are totally or diametrically opposed, the greatness of the Lord is evidenced even from the great waters of troubles and difficulty and greatness abounds in all circumstances. Even though David’s small spot on the great waters might be on shaky grounds, these are great waters and these great waters evidence the greatness of the Lord.

At the same time one of the things that David is scrambling for in his troubles, is just what is the mindset of the Lord towards him and those with him? Are they just being given a passing glance from the Lord or is the sight of the Lord continuously upon them.

The concluding verses 11 through 15 give a description of these great blessings,

12 That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth;
That our daughters may be as pillars,
Sculptured in palace style;
13 That our barns may be full,
Supplying all kinds of produce;
That our sheep may bring forth thousands
And ten thousands in our fields;
14 That our oxen may be well laden;
That there be no breaking in or going out;
That there be no outcry in our streets.
15 Happy are the people who are in such a state;
Happy are the people whose God is the LORD!

Palace style and, pillars, are words from great architecture and are indicating that the Lord is to be called upon as the architect of the great blessings and the designer.

The Lord is painting the picture and is supplying the artistry.

We can ask the Lord in prayer to design as great blessing for us and indeed this design is available in manifold ways.

We can see the artistic touch of the Lord in nature but that also is a way in which he may speak to us and communicate with us, in the form of artistry. Direct interventions can have the touch of artistry in many and varied ways and it can be understood that the Lord answers prayer with the touch of an artist..

In verse 14 it says, “Supplying all kinds of produce,” The Lord will supply all kinds of things and all kinds of help so there can be a creative approach to asking for all kinds of assistance and blessings all of which can be supplied in according to what He wants in the specifics and in overall blessings.. There is every variety of a wealth of blessings that can be from the artistic hand of the Lord.

The state of affairs is also important as part of the blessings.  It is important to not only have an awareness of the blessings, but also to be in the state of readiness to receive the blessings and movement should be made in prayer and worship towards that state mentioned in the final verse of this psalm. Part of the way David did this was composing a new song for the Lord on his harp

The blessings themselves, do add up to bringing about a state of affairs, that can be called happy.

The great blessings have a extended nature, but it doesn’t say the barns  are so overfull that they aren’t working, it is a blessing that is full or filling in nature but not to the point where it is uncontainable or out of control.

If this wasn’t the case, that is, where the blessings were full or the portrait of the landscape was filled in with thousands, it might be that they would be scrambling for things or scraping the bottom of the barrel in looking for the limited section where the fields were flourishing  and that would not be the state of affairs that the Lord wanted for them. Every direction was steeped with great blessings.

From one field to the next, great blessings of abundance were found. If it were a matter of fishing, every section of the waters would be excellent for fishing.

A question then, since it is brought up in this psalm, is what is the state of affairs that the Lord wants, and this can be contemplated and meditated upon. Often people look for the Lord’s will as something that is quite specific, but here it is also talking about a somewhat bigger picture look at this, where it is that a certain state of affairs is also part of what the Lord wants and this is a matter of an overall vision of say peace, abundance, prosperity, joy and the presence of the Lord in the ways of great blessings.

This psalm also mends peace and prosperity or abundance. The city itself is calm and free from the threats of stealing in its various forms. There is both the state of peace with the concurrent state of prosperity and also beauty is mentioned. as part of the abundance.

All this is evidence of the Lord’s mindfulness towards individuals, which was at first questioned in this psalm but emerges as a clear truth as blessings do descend upon individuals from the hand of the Lord and the blessings will go to all of their fields, or It says there will be ten thousands in our fields, not only one field so all your fields of endeavor will be touched mightily in these walls of great blessings.

The last set of verses, 12 through 15 could also be looked at separately as a model of prayer in relation to seeking great blessings.

David would not be asking for these things, if indeed it was not within the realm of possibility that the prayers would be answered as such. David was of course praying from the position of nearly sinking in the great waters, but it didn’t have to be that there prayers were thought of from only an well disadvantaged position.

You don’t have to be under the weight of oppression to pray.

You can also pray from the position of relative ease.

Previously David doesn’t lose his prayer power because he steps into an oceanic range of troubles.

You could pray for the salvation of the world from the deck of the sinking Titanic but it doesn’t have to be that way.

The last 4 verses could however also be looked at on a stand alone basis.

Some of the columns of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome still stand today, at least partially… Columns can represent a situation of a long standing and lasting, or a period of history that is significant

The plant image is one of continuity, growth and freshness.

Also from these last 4 verses, there is a model as to how we can up the ante on our prayer vision.

David in this psalm gives prayer vision for specific people, sons and daughters, the streets of the city and the state of affairs and happiness for all.

You can say prayers from not the best circumstances but the key is to maintain a prayer vision of greatness.

Part of great blessings is having the ability to pray and to have prayer vision.

Also, in our prayer requests and thanksgivings, seemingly unrelated blessings can be linked in prayer requests with thanksgiving.

This psalm speaks of all kinds of produce representing all kinds of blessings that may seem to be unrelated, but do go into forming a bigger picture of great blessings and therefore a vision or landscape of great blessings.

So a prayer for example could be to thank the Lord you have good reading ability and good ability to jog. The blessings seem to be somewhat distinct and unrelated, but do go into forming a bigger picture and thereby there can be a greater understanding of how a round of blessings go into the idea of overall great blessings.

The overall key to this psalm is to understand that there is a model of prayer vision that can be found and maintained, regardless of circumstances and great prayer vision and great blessings with the answers to this prayer vision are still available.

And also David refers in this psalm to being the King. Status achieved doesn’t mean that all the prayers are already done and finished with. There is a call to ongoing prayer even from places of high achievement and status. The Kingship of David did not separate him or isolate him in any way from the call to prayer and his prayer vision.

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