mutual blessing

Psalm 129:1,5 "Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in His ways...May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem."

Called a wisdom psalm, the psalmist reviews previous blessings then prayed for greater blessing.  He prayed for the reader's future and also for Jerusalem's prosperity as it would extend to every family in the nation.

I see its wisdom in the way he prayed.  It encourages as I pray to always remember to thank God for His previous blessings.  We did a sweet exercise in our inservice meetings yesterday.  We wrote down a person in our live that changed our lives (in this exercise it could be either positive or negative).  And then with a partner we talked to that person and told him/her how we felt about him/her.  It was beautiful and touching and one of many take aways was the feeling that we shouldn't wait to say these things to the people we need to talk to.  In the same way, I need to say thanks to God for all He's done...EVERYday.  I shouldn't wait until the need is deemed desperate to have that conversation with Him.  It needs to happen all the time and the first thing out of my mouth needs to be praise/thanksgiving.  He doesn't need it, but He is definitely due it and I know He doesn't hear it enough with me.  

I also see wisdom in the psalmist praying for Jerusalem.  He realized that God's blessing on both home and nation are mutually dependent...not necessarily exclusively dependent, but when one is blessed, it blesses the other and the reverse.  When our family is blessed, often we focus outside ourselves, out of crises mode, and go out and serve others hence blessing our neighborhood, our city, our nation as it ripples outward.  When our nation is blessed, our family is blessed in less outside stressors, in familial community, respect and love toward our city, neighbor and family.  As I pray for my family, I also need to be praying for my country realizing they are not exclusive of each other.

All who fear and obey the Lord are blessed by Him.  How much greater to share the blessing?!