Psalm 129 (ESV)1 "Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth"- let Israel now say- 2 "Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. 3 The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows." 4The LORD is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked. 5May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward! 6Let them be like the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, 7with which the reaper does not fill his hand nor the binder of sheaves his arms, 8nor do those who pass by say, “The blessing of the LORD be upon you! We bless you in the name of the LORD!”

Tough Faith: The people of God are tough. For long centuries those who belong to the world have waged war against the way of faith, and they have yet to win. Christian faith needs to be as tough as a perennial that can stick it out through storm and drought, survive the trampling of careless feet and the attacks of vandals. The person of true faith outlasts all the oppressors. Faith lasts.

Jesus’ ministry began with forty days of temptation and concluded with his crucifixion. There were cunning attempts to get him off track, every temptation disguised as a suggestion for improvement, offered with the best of intentions to help Jesus in the ministry on which he had so naively and innocently set out. The way of Jesus’ faith is the way our faith should be. It is not a fad that is taken up in one century only to be discarded in the next. It is a way that works. It has been tested thoroughly.

Cut Cords, Withered Grass: The life of the world that is opposed or indifferent to God is barren and futile. It is naively thinking you might get a harvest of grain from that shallow patch of dirt on a shelf of rock. The way of the world is marked by proud, God-defying purposes, unharnessed from eternity and therefore worthless and futile. As this Psalm points out the world’s way results in withered grass which comes to nothing at the harvest.

The Passion of Patience: For who does not experience flashes of anger at those who make our way hard and difficult? There are times in the long obedience of Christian discipleship when we get tired and fatigue draws our tempers short. In this time we look to God to give us patience and fill us with love. We all make mistakes in this walk, just as the psalmist did in Psalm 129, but perseverance does not mean perfection. It means that we keep on going right through all the people that make our way more treacherous. We will not learn by swallowing our sense of outrage, or excusing all wickedness as a neurosis. We will do it by offering up our anger to God, who trains us in creative love.

God Sticks with Us: The cornerstone sentence of Psalm 129 is “The LORD is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked.” The emphasis is on his dependable personal relationship. He is always there for us. That he fights for us is the reason Christians can look back over a long life crisscrossed with cruelties, unannounced tragedies, unexpected setbacks, sufferings, disappointments, depressions, and see it all as a road of blessings. The central reality for Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God’s faithfulness. Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to our own.

Purposes Last: The Christian faith is the discovery of the God who sticks with us, the righteous God. Christian discipleship is a responsive decision to walk in his ways, steadily and firmly, and then finding that His way integrates all our interests, passions and gifts, our human needs and our eternal aspirations. It is the way of life we were created for. It is the way of life that does not end in a weak and withered harvest but one blessed by the righteous LORD.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 128 (ESV)1 Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! 2You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.

3Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. 4Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.

5 The LORD bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! 6May you see your children’s children! Peace be upon Israel!

Being a Christian is what we were created for. The life of faith has the support of an entire creation and the resources of a magnificent redemption.

Promises and Pronouncements: Blessing is the word that describes this happy state of affairs. Psalm 128, sandwiched between promises and pronouncements, is an illustration of blessing. An image of a life that is bounded on one side by promises of blessing, on the other side by pronouncements of blessing, and experiences blessings between those boundaries.

Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, identifies the eight key qualities in the life of a person of faith and announces each one with the word blessed. Jesus makes it clear that discipleship is an expansion of our capacities, an overflowing of joy, and a blessed life.

Sharing In Life: Blessing has inherent in it the power to increase. It functions by sharing and delight in life. We must develop better and deeper concepts of happiness than those held by the world, which makes a happy life to consist in “ease, honors, and great wealth.” Psalm 128 helps us do that. Too much of the world’s happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy the other. As we learn to give and share, our vitality increases, and the people around us become fruitful vines and olive shoots at our tables. For the Christian, blessing comes so that we can bless. Being blessed results in blessing others.

Traveling by the Roads: To guard against all blasphemous chumminess with the Almighty, the Bible talks of the fear of the Lord—not to scare us but to bring us to awesome attention before the overwhelming grandeur of God. Not only do we let God be God as he really is, but we start doing the things for which he made us.

People accuse religion with interfering with what they consider their innocent pleasures and wishes. But religion is an inconvenience only to those who are traveling against the grain of creation, at cross-purposes with the way that leads to redemption. God’s way, and God’s presence are where we experience happiness that lasts, to our children’s children.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 127 (ESV)1Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. 2It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. 4Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. 5Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

One of the tasks of Christian discipleship is to relearn how to work. One requirement of discipleship is to learn the ways sin skews our nature and to submit what we learn to the continuing will of God, so that we are reshaped through the days of our obedience. Psalm 127 show both the right way and he wrong way to work. It posts a warning and provides an example to guide Christians in work that is done to the glory of God.

Babel or Buddhist: Psalm 127 first posts a warning about work. If we work without God then we are wasting our time. Anything we try and accomplish on our own, without his blessing, will never glorify him. Psalm 127 shows a way to work that is neither sheer activity nor pure passivity. It doesn’t glorify work as such, and it doesn’t condemn work as such. If we want to experience the fullness of work we need to work for what God wants.

In the Beginning God Worked: The Bible begins with an announcement that God created. He did something, he created something, he worked. The work of God is defined in the Scriptures. One of the reasons that Christians read Scripture repeatedly and carefully is to find out just how God works in Jesus Christ so that we can first rest in the work of Jesus Christ (The Gospel) and then work in the name of Jesus Christ.

In every letter that the apostle Paul wrote, he demonstrated that a Christian’s work is a natural, inevitable and faithful development out of God’s work. Christian discipleship, by orienting us in God’s work and setting us in the mainstream of what God is already doing, frees us from the compulsiveness of work. Every Christian must be constantly vigilant against believing that they can do God’s work for him.

The foundational truth is that work is good. If God does it, it must be all right. Work has dignity: there can be nothing degrading about work if God works. Work had purpose: there can be nothing futile about work if God works.

Effortless Work: In contrast to the anxious labor that builds cities and guards possessions, this Psalm praises the effortless work of making children. We do not make these people that walk among us, we participate in an act of love that was provided for us in the structure of God’s creation. By joining Jesus and the Psalm we learn a way of work that does not acquire things or amass possessions but responds to God and develops relationships. The work that we are called to do is the personal relationships that we create and develop. Out of numerous handshakes and greetings, some germinate and grow into a friendship in Christ.

Relentless compulsive work habits which our society rewards and admires are seen by the psalmist as a sign of weak faith and assertive pride, as if God could not be trusted to accomplish his will, as if we could rearrange the universe by our own effort. Psalm 127 insists on a perspective in which our effort is at the periphery and God’s work is at the center.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 126 (ESV)1When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. 2Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." 3The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.

4Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! 5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.

One of the delightful discoveries along the way of Christian discipleship is how much enjoyment there is, how much laughter you hear, how much sheer fun you find. As Christians we should partake in joy as a daily ritual, exclaiming our enjoyment in living a life of obedience to God.

A Consequence, Not a Requirement: Joy is characteristic of the Christian pilgrimage. It is the second in Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22 - 23). It is the first of Jesus’ signs in the Gospel of John. Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience. We can decide to live in response to the abundance of God and not under the dictatorship of our own poor needs. One of the certain consequences of such a life is joy, the kind expressed in Psalm 126.

Joyful Expectation: Joy is nurtured by anticipation. If the joy-producing acts of God are characteristic of our past as God’s people, they will also be characteristic of our future as his people. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness that the redeemed will experience. Joy is what God gives, not what we work up.

Christian joy happens in the midst of pain, suffering, loneliness, and misfortune. “3More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:3-11).

The psalm does not give joy as a package or as a formula, but there are some things it does do. It shows up the tininess of the world’s joy and affirms the solidarity of God’s joy. God promises that whatever else is happening we can be a happy people. Why? Because “the LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.”

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 125 (ESV)1Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore. 3For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. 4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts! 5But those who turn aside to their crooked ways the LORD will lead away with evildoers! Peace be upon Israel!

Backslider was a basic word in the religious vocabulary depicting people who had made a commitment of faith to our Lord, had been active in church, but had lost their footing on the ascents to Christ and backslid. This was a threat to all, at all times. You could at any moment fall victim to loosing your footing and slipping backwards. Another way to look at this action Christians are prone to is by examining scripture and seeking a different truth. In scripture there is a background of confidence, a leisured security, among people of faith.

Someone Else Built the Fortress: The emphasis of Psalm 125 is not the precariousness of the Christian life but on its solidity. Jerusalem was set in a saucer of hills. It was the safest of cities because of the protective fortress these hills provided. Just so, is the person of faith surrounded by the Lord.

People of faith have the same needs for protection and security as anyone else. What is different is that we don’t have to build our own. God provides our safe haven. He constructs the walls that secure us in his presence. At no time does a person of faith feel left out in the wilderness, but brought within the city gates to rest in the peace and shelter that God provides in Christ in the Gospel.

A Saw–Toothed History: The confident, robust faith that we desire and think is our destiny is qualified by recurrent insecurities. Singing psalm 125 is one way Christians have to develop confidence and banish insecurity. One threat to our security comes from feelings of depression and doubt. We can be moved by nearly anything: sadness, joy, success, failure.

Israel can be described as a having a saw–toothed–history. One day it’s up, and next it is down. But as we read about their history we realize something steady: they are always God’s people. We learn to live not by our feelings about God but by the facts of God. Our security should come from who God is, not from how we feel about him. Discipleship is a decision to live by what we know about God, not by what we feel. In other words, it’s not what we feel about God that makes us secure, its that God chooses to know us and Christ chooses to save us.

A Damoclean Sword: Another source of uncertainty is our pain and suffering. The daily conflicts that we face can be demoralizing. God tells us that danger and oppression are never too much for faith. That nothing counter to God’s justice has eternity to it. God will never let you down; he’ll never push you past your limits; he’ll always help you come through it.

A Nonnegotiable Contract: The third kind of threat to the confidence promised to the Christian is the fear of defection. However, once you are a Christian there is no getting out of it. We have our ups and downs, zealously believing one day and gloomily doubting the next, but God is faithful. You may choose the crooked way. You may choose to run from God. But if you are His, He will not lose you. If He has begun a good work He will bring it completion. Our confidence, our security, our perseverance is not due to our performance, our faithfulness, or our determination but to the LORD who surrounds His people, to the Spirit who seals His people, to the Shepherd who leads His people.

Mountain Climbers Roped Together: Psalm 125 says that being a Christian is like sitting in the middle of Jerusalem, fortified and secure. Neither our feelings nor the facts of suffering nor the fear of defection are evidence that God has abandoned us. Do not be anxious, our life with God is a sure thing, because He is sure and because He surrounds and because He saves and because He seeks.

Traveling the way of faith and climbing the ascent to Christ may be difficult, but it is not worrisome. The weather may be adverse, but it is never fatal. We may slip and stumble and fall, but the rope will hold us. God will always hold us.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 134 (ESV) 1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side- let Israel now say- 2if it had not been the LORD who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5then over us would have gone the raging waters.

6Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! 7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!

8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 124 is a song of hazard and of help. Among the Songs of Ascents, this is the one that better describes the hazardous work of all discipleship and declares the help that is always experienced at the hand of God.

A Clerk in the Complaints Department of Humanity: The first lines of the psalm twice describes God as “for us.” The last line is “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” God is for us. God is our help.

The proper work for a Christian is witness, not apology, and Psalm124 is an excellent model. It does not argue God’s help; it does not explain God’s help; it is a testimony of God’s help in the form of a song. The witness becomes vivid and contagious. God’s help is not a private experience; it is a corporate reality—not an exception that occurs among isolated strangers, but the norm among the people of God.

There is no other literature in all the world that is more true to life and more honest than the Psalms, for here we have warts-and-all religion. Psalm 124 is not a selected witness, inserted like a commercial into our lives to testify that life goes better with God. The people who know this psalm best and who have tested it out and used it often tell us that it is credible, that it fits into what we know of life lived in faith.

Hazardous Work: Christian discipleship is hazardous work. There are no easy tasks on the Christian way; there are only task that can be done faithfully or erratically, with joy or with resentment. Throughout your work you need to remember that God will accomplish his will, and you get to cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus.

The psalm, though, is not about hazards but about help. The hazardous work of discipleship is not the subject of the psalm but only its setting. The subject is help. During this time God wants us to not be fussy. To not become moralist who cluck their tongues over a world going to hell; Christians are people who praise the God who is on our side.

Enlarged Photographs of Ordinary Objects: The final sentence, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth,” links the God who created heaven and earth to the God who helps us personally.

Psalm 124 is a magnification of the items of life that are thought to be unpleasant, best kept under cover, best surrounded with silence lest they clutter our lives with unpleasantness. Psalm 124 is an instance of a person who digs deeply into the trouble and finds there the presence of the God who is on our side. Our faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence, not the easiest.

The assumption by outsiders that Christians are naïve or protected is the opposite of the truth: Christians know more about the deep struggles of life than others, more about the ugliness of sin. This psalm looks into the troubles of history, the anxiety of personal conflict and emotional trauma. And it sees there the God who is on our side, God is our help.

We speak our words of praise in a world that is hellish; we sing our songs of victory in a world where things get messy; we live our joy among people who neither understand nor encourage us. But the content of our lives is God, not humanity. We are not scavenging in the dark alleys of the world, poking in its garbage cans for a bare subsistence. We are traveling in the light, toward God who is rich in mercy and strong to save. It is Christ, not culture, who defines our lives. It is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shape our days.

If the LORD was not on our side we would have been swallowed alive. But our help is in the name of The LORD, the one who made heaven and earth.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)