Psalm 129

As I read this psalm this morning, my first thought was, “wow, how does this relate to the church today?”  We know that the Old Testament stories of Israel are a foreshadowing of the present day Church of Christ, but sometimes the analogies and imagery isn’t quite clear to me.  I had to dig deeper and read from Wiersbe’s writings on the Psalms.

“The plowing image is a good one for believers today, for it reminds us that there can be a glorious harvest, but it depends on the seeds that we plant. Of itself, suffering does not produce blessing. If we plant seeds of hatred and resentment, then suffering will produce bitterness. But if we plant faith, hope, love, and the precious promises of the Word, then the harvest will bless us and help others, and it will bring glory to God. (See 1 Peter 4:12–19.) God permits people to treat us like dirt, and we must accept it, but we have the privilege of transforming it by the grace of God into character that honors the Lord.”

Excerpt From
Be Exultant (Psalms 90-150)
Warren W. Wiersbe

This was all the explanation I needed to understand what this Psalm means for us!  The imagery of plowers plowing the back of Israel can be likened to the stripes of a whip left by the persecutors.  In fact, this imagery is specifically used multiple times throughout the scriptures to describe Israel’s Babylonian captivity!  Yet, plowing soil is what is necessary for growth!  We see multiple times in the New Testament that Jesus uses farming analogies to explain our lives and the Kingdom.  As Wiersbe mentioned in the above excerpt, the plowing prepares soil for seed, but we must be careful what seed we plant after the plowing.  The Psalmist highlights grass that grows on the rooftops.  In our context, it might be more appropriate to consider maple seeds that grow in your gutters if you haven’t cleaned them in a while…

Yet, in Luke 6, Jesus tells us exactly what seeds to plant:

27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic also. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and from the one who takes away your things, do not ask for them back. 31 And just as you want people ⌊to do⌋ to you, do ⌊the same⌋ to them. 32 “And if you love those who love you, what kind of credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what kind of credit is that to you? Even the sinners do the same! 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive back, what kind of credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, so that they may get back an equal amount! 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting back nothing, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful!

I’ll be honest, this passage isn’t comforting at all.  It doesn’t make the wounds of the plowshares on our backs or the coarse words that lacerate our hearts, feel better or heal faster. Nor does it make the furrows in the ground close up quickly.  It takes time.  Slow, painstaking, time.  If you consider a field prepared for harvest, the ground is broken up, plowed, seeded, fertilized, and left alone.  The grooves still exist in the dirt.  As the rains fall over the seasons and the heat from the sun hardens the soil, the furrows slowly level out and the ground smooths over and hardens, like a scar finally covering over the planted seeds that begin to take root and sprout.  Being surrounded by plenty of corn fields here in Central Pennsylvania, it’s a cycle I see happen regularly.  But, until today, I don’t think I fully grasped the perplexity of the process!  In today’s immediate gratification landscape, I realize farming seems like an old custom of the past that doesn’t quite match our society.  Yet, if it wasn’t for this slow, painstaking, and not very profitable process, there would not me very much sustenance for us to live on!  We still rely on this slow process for nourishment, sustenance, and growth.  If we relied upon crops that shoot up quickly, we would wither and die just as they do as soon as the brilliant sun begins to shine.  So too is our spiritual growth.  It takes time, pain, and patience.

Reading through the Psalms, I recognize we have been on a journey of seeing a lot of pain and suffering and trusting in the Lord through it.  Sometimes I feel like I am repeating myself with some of these ideas that pass through my mind as I am reading.  But the truth is: this is life!  The beauty of the Psalms is that they are real, raw, and honest accounts of what the authors experienced and how they survived.  We want to numb the pain, ignore the process, and live happy-go-lucky lives!  But, without plowing the fields there will be no plentiful harvest.  Without the patience of waiting for the seed to sprout roots, there is no benefit.  Without trusting in God for the rain, wind, and sun to come and go day after day, there is no purpose.  The more I dig into scriptures, the more I am convinced that if we had it any other way, we would take it for granted and be a spiteful people.  Without darkness there is no appreciation for the Light.  Without suffering there is no celebration in victory.  Without rain there is no crying out for the sun and without drought there is no gratefulness for the rain.  It all goes together.  You can’t have one without the other.

Momentarily, I was thinking about mentioning the new heaven and earth, where Jesus said there will be no more pain, suffering, or tears.  Usually, I consider that to mean there will be no heartache or struggles.  We know death will no longer be an option, but what if this also means that the things that cause us tears will no longer cause us tears but still be present?  I’m not going to suppose I know what all of this will look like, but as the serenity prayer says, “accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,” what if we will finally have a righteous perspective on God’s use of these difficult things in life?  What if, instead of simply taking away all of these things, God helps us to fully understand that the plowing of the soil of our hearts is a necessary, even joyful, step to enjoying a bountiful harvest?  What if we will finally be able to embrace the pain, smile at persecution, and welcome adversity because we know what the harvest will be as a result?