In Britain, we are generally suspicious of good news, it seems. I don’t know if cynicism is ingrained in us, but there does seem to be a cultural predisposition to be wary about good news. ‘If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is!’ is the underlying philosophy we grow up believing.
Such training means that when we read a psalm like Ps 128 – a psalm which promises blessing to all who fear the Lord and walk in His ways and which then goes on to illustrate this with promises of an idyllic marriage and lots of happy children and grandchildren – we tend to read it through this filter of suspicion and wariness. Other psalms full of God’s promises provoke a similar reaction (e.g. Ps 91:5-8, Ps 121). We know that Christians suffer illness, succumb to divorce and face heartache and troubles just like non-believers (and sometimes more so, it seems!) How, then, can Ps 128 be so blithe and confident in its talk of blessings? Sandy Grant asks the questions we perhaps would like to be brave enough to ask: ‘But what about the diligent Christian who ends up unemployed for a prolonged period? What about the couple who seem unable to have children? And what about the life cut short by cancer or car accident? Did they not fear the Lord? Could we who are employed and have children and live longer be so bold and blind and callous to claim we are somehow better than them at walking in God’s ways? How is this psalm not the prosperity gospel?’[1]
We do need to understand that wisdom literature often makes wise generalisations rather than reading the Bible inflexibly as a list of infallible promises. However, the Bible is also clear about God’s desire to bless people. His natural inclination is to bless (see Ps 67:6). We find this hard to believe, being more inclined to think that God is (in the words of Bruce Nolan in the film ‘Bruce Almighty’) ‘a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but he’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.’ This view of God is as far from the revelation of God in the Bible as could possibly be, yet most of us accept it unquestioningly when adversity hits us.
Ps 128 reorients us in a right view of God as One who loves to bless. He blesses the individual who fears Him and walks in His ways; He blesses wives and families; He blesses whole nations. Ultimately, this psalm promises us blessing in the two main ways we define ourselves: what we do and who we’re connected to (exactly what Genesis 1-2 says we were made for: for work, to till the soil, and for family, where two become one and be fruitful and multiply). We can afford to believe in the benevolence of God and to relax into His blessings because we belong to a loving God who longs to bless us (see Matt 7:11). It’s time to dare to believe that the God we worship is a God of blessing and to understand that our part is to revere Him and follow Him in obedience (see also Ps 111:10, Prov 1:7). The gospel is good news. It’s ultimately too good not to be true
[1] http://gotherefor.com/offer.php?intid=29607&changestore=true