If I were to rank my weeks on a scale of 1-to-stellar, I would say this one was in the toilet. Weird things happened, nothing went right, and every time I turned around, I got more bad news. To top it off, today I had to take my beloved dog Harley that I’ve had for the past seven years to the emergency animal hospital to have his stomach pumped. I thought I had closed my pantry door, and the little guy never gets in the kitchen trash, but apparently I didn’t, and he did, and he scavenged some old coffee grounds from yesterday’s brew while I was away at church. Coffee grounds are toxic to dogs, can cause a rapid heart rate, seizures or death.
I taught on Psalm 126 last week in Sunday School, and I have experienced times of joy that were so great that my only reaction could be one of unbridled emotion… delighting in just how amazing my God has been. It’s crazy, because I experienced that very recently.
I’ve also been here… where I’m waiting and asking my God to restore things back to the way they were in the good times… in a way that only he can do. Just like the streams in the Negev (desert) could only happen after a bountiful rain, something only he could orchestrate.
I love this Psalm, because it shows both sides. The author has experienced God’s awesomeness in the past, and knows he will experience it again in the future. But now he’s waiting… waiting and begging, and in the meantime, even though things are rough, he’s still sowing. Sowing when it’s hard, because he knows he can’t reap without first sowing. Sowing in a time that’s so hard he can can’t help but cry, and yet he continues to sow that seed. Because one day the harvest will come.
So when times are really good in my life, I praise a God who blesses abundantly. When things really stink–like tonight–I still praise my God because he is near to the brokenhearted, because I have a God who knows the sadness I feel about a poor, sick dog, and because his plan is so much more beautiful than anything that I can muster up. And so I will praise him, and I will sow.