Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! My soul is consumed with longing
for your rules at all times. -Psalm 117
What are we to make of all the the people in the Scriptures, particularly David, who seek after the law, both to understand it and to follow it? Why should someone desire to know and obey the law? The only way we can make sense of this question is to turn to our concepts of punishment and blessing —to rethink these ideas with what the Scriptures, David in particular, teach us.
When we think of God punishing, or even judging, a nation, we think of Earthquakes, tornadoes, and financial failures. When we think of God punishing, or judging, a person, we consider lose of job, family, or health —especially health. When we think of God blessing a country, we think of military success, or financial wealth, or good fortune in terms of natural or human resources. When we think of God blessing a person, we think of children, family, possessions, or a good job.
The reality is, however, far different.
The reality is that God blesses us by allowing us (or directing us) to do what is right. And God punishes, or judges, by allowing people and societies to do what is wrong. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to us, because we normally think of blessings are the result of doing right, and judgement as the result of doing wrong. But this view misses human depravity, and the tension between free will and God’s sovereignty.
While we are free to make moral choices, God also guides and directs in a way that makes those choices either result in blessings or curses in our lives.
So winning a war, for a country, might be a blessing. Or it might well be a judgment. Poor schools, or rampant sexuality, might not be just causes for judgment, but rather the judgments themselves. A cup of water is a blessing to a thirsty man, but it’s a judgment on one who’s struggling to swim already.
God not only judges through destruction —he also allows us to destroy ourselves.
This is what David knew when he wrote the Psalms —it is a blessing to be taught and enabled to follow the ways of God, to reach the ultimate blessings God has planned.
