Psalms 3:8

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Thy blessing is upon thy people." Psa 3:8

The reading should be, "Let thy blessing be upon thy people." The Psalmist is not stating a fact, he is rather praying for the Church. David's was a pastoral soul. A fine tone of solicitude runs through all his supplications and desires. But that which is literally a prayer may at the same time be also a fact, and in this case is proved to be so. Taking the text therefore as a fact, we are reminded that God has a "people," a community specifically his own; the reference is not to the total humanity, but to humanity specialised and set apart, humanity sanctified. By God's "blessing" we are not to understand a merely external sunshine, a light which floods the path and makes the physical man radiant: we are rather to understand a light that fills the soul with morning, and that gives promise of a nightless day. When God's blessing is upon a man it does not follow that the man is relieved from chastisement. The contrary doctrine is distinctly laid down in Scripture, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." A man often scourges his own child when he would not scourge another, simply because the child is his own, and he has the child's advantage at heart. No one can come into the church for the sake of the blessing. Then would church communion become a kind of commercial relationship. We do not come for the blessing; we get the blessing in coming. God's blessing is often a discipline; we do not set down on some green knoll and contemplate the landscape, nor do we bury ourselves in velvet sward and look up to the blue sky with the poet's contemplativeness; because the blessing of God is upon us we are to arise and pursue, we are to take the prey with a strong hand, and to show ourselves skilful workmen in the Lord's service. The Lord's blessing is therefore an inspiration as well as a benediction. Know that the blessing of God is upon you when you are going to do more work. Be sure that the divine blessing is resting largely and lovingly on you when you feel you must give away your substance with both hands that poverty may be relieved and that knowledge may be increased on the earth. When you are inclined to shut yourself up in elegant solitude, and to contemplate all life from a distance which deprives it of vividness, be quite sure that the blessing of the Lord is withdrawn from you. God's blessing is not set upon people with the view of discouraging others, but with the view of encouraging them towards divine fellowship and divine confidence.