Psalm 134

You may be thinking, after reading this psalm, “That’s it?  What am I supposed to do with this?”  Or, maybe it’s just me!  As the concluding Psalm of Ascents, this short psalm concludes with a very powerful message.  It is the purpose of these psalms and a recall to what we are trying to do as followers of Him.  Remember, when we call Him Lord, we are dedicating our lives to His ways.  I think one of the hardest things for us to do with this psalm is to understand it.

What does it mean to bless the Lord?

Generally, we tend to think of blessing as something we receive from God, so then how can we bless Him?  The Hebrew word used here, which is translated into “bless,” is actually the word used to connotate kneeling and bowing down!  Did you know that?  I didn’t, I just looked it up.  How interesting that to bless the Lord means to bow down and adore Him.  It’s interesting, actually, to consider the direct translation of “bless the Lord,” which correlates to, “bow down and kneel before the One who deserves to be bowed down to.”

One of the unique things from my own spiritual journey is that when I was a child, I recognized and accepted Jesus as my Savior, but didn’t have a good concept of what it meant for Him to be my Lord.  It wasn’t until my late 20s, after arduous conversations with my pastor and dad, that I began to understand what it means to recognize Jesus as my Lord.  In the US, we operate under a democracy, so our worldview and interaction with others(transcendent and otherwise) is seen through this filter.  We have been told we have rights, we have a vote, we have a voice and we deserve to be heard and respected.  However, God’s rule and reign isn’t a democracy, it is a kingdom.  This means that everything is focused on and flows down from the King (or queen).  If you submit to their lordship, then things will go well with you.  If you don’t, then they won’t.  So then, the same is true about God’s reign over us.  We still have a choice to make, but the implications here are much more severe than telling the queen of England to sod off!

To bless the Lord, then, is to submit to, recognize, and worship God as ruler of all.

When God blesses us, then, it means he is kneeling down to our level to give us something.  He is coming down to our level to impart a gift.  We see this in the scriptures many times not only from God to us, but also from those of authority.  There is a tradition in the Old Testament we witness when fathers would bless their children when they are about to pass away, not only with physical inheritance, but with prophecy.  The most stark image of this is when Jacob blesses his sons, which then become the 12 tribes of Israel and the subsequent books in the Torah are witness to those blessings coming true.  Not all of them are positive, but they foretell what will happen and what they can expect.  I imagine those sons who didn’t receive a very positive outlook tried to work against what their father told them would happen, and they happened anyway!  You can read all about it in Genesis 49.

So then, how can we bless the Lord on a daily basis?  Since He gives us everything, even the very breath we are breathing now, what do we have to give Him?  Our followership.  Our rendering of what He deserves, which is our dedication.  Our obedience.  Our praise.  Here is a song I found that reveals how to bless the Lord.