Blessed

Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. – Psalm 128:1

The heat wave continued in southern Missouri in the middle of September this year, but the shortened daylight inevitably reminds me of another season coming. I am thankful for the fruitful summer but as the heat advisory went on, I was ready for fall’s coming. Especially now as a homesteading family, we appreciate the rain much more for the crops and animals. My husband has led the way and given the children good examples of undertaking hard labor with joy without complaints. I am proud of my boys taking up more farm chores in the heat. Thankfully, the evening cooler breeze is a nice touch at the end of a hot day. After all, sunset comes sooner each night now. Isn’t it a true blessing to enjoy each season of our lives?

How was your summer or life in general so far? Ours was quiet, busy and eventful, even though we didn’t travel too far out of town for vacations. We are still working on an effective system for if we are out of town. The care of animals is teaching us creative ways to embrace staycation and spend time intentionally together! My hubby turned half-century old and officially joined the 50 club this summer! We celebrated our 20-year wedding anniversary by working on a simple handprint art project as a family. Another big reason we stayed low key this year was because we were preparing for the arrival of our fifth child (see our updated about page if interested).

Psalm 128 was chosen as a birthday blessing to my husband this summer. It’s meaningful to pause and ponder on this milestone year by meditating on this precious psalm together as a family. This short psalm only has six verses, but the word “blessed” is repeated four times! In the Hebrew language, “blessed” is equal to “happy”. This psalm is often recited at Jewish weddings to give blessings of a married life. I wonder how many modern day Christian couples would sincerely receive this kind of blessing described from the psalm on their wedding day.

In my Chinese Bible, “blessed” is “福” (fu). If you look at the character “福” closely, there are two parts. On the left, the radical “礻or 示”often is used to represent “God”, “blessings” or “religious worship”, which means “to reveal, declare or manifest”; and the right part literally represents “one piece of land”. David, in Psalm 37:11, records “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” I will get back to the eternal blessing, but in Chinese traditional culture, people used to have a reverence to the one true God and respect to the land. One popular idiom people even today like to quote, especially when a family welcomes more children or grand-children, is “多子多福”, which means the more children/grand children (especially sons) you have, the more blessings you will have. It makes sense when you work with the land, the more children you have, the more work can be accomplished as a family unit. Thus, more blessings in life!

Sadly, in modern China, the younger generation has discarded many traditional values in family planning. The social pressure is either teaching or forcing the young couples to stop having more children. Many of the parents themselves were born under the one-child policy (from 1980 to 2016). As a result, it makes sense that many young people in China either by choice or by force, still opt to have only one child even when the one-child policy was ended in China. In reality, the country’s fertility rate has actually dropped, rather than increased. When a society can’t reproduce themselves effectively, their future vitality is pretty shaky.

China is not the only country struggling with the fertility rate. Other Asian countries, like Japan, South Korea, or European countries, like Germany and UK, are committing suicide of their nations by not being able to have more children for their countries. When men blindly follow their own selfish desires rather than God’s design, destruction and death are certain without outside attacks. With no fear of the Lord, men can quickly shift from ignorance to wickedness as they continue to follow their natural fallen nature, as individuals or as a culture.

To be blessed for someone who fears the Lord is pretty simple. The blessing is to be received rather than earned by self-effort. Psalm 128 is best read together with Psalm 127, which shows the source of true blessing. On the other hand, Psalm 128 describes those blessings in daily life, through work, marriage, children/grandchildren and the growth of the church family. I am grateful for a living example through my husband about the simple joy in following Christ. My man is very happy with life, whatever it means. God is the one to give or take away. The Lord Himself IS our very great reward! In Him we lack nothing. Do we have faith to believe in God’s promises when life is hard? This is great news to know our happiness is not determined by our changing circumstances!

A blessed man trusts God to work out the details when things don’t turn out the way he has expected. I pray and do see the man of our house as a blessed man who fears the Lord, rather than people or hard circumstances. He is not perfect but is a God-fearing man. So he is blessed by the Biblical standards. As a bonus, he is also blessed by ancient Chinese traditions. Perhaps older cultures are much more closely related to Biblical times than modern cultural assumptions. In fact, the longer I study the Bible, the more I see the commonality between Biblical values and ancient Chinese morals.

To be blessed is not wishful thinking but requires total obedience without delay. God has blessed us humans with a free will under His sovereign reign, but we do have responsibilities to respond to God’s teaching and calling through His living Word. As the Lord called and led us to leave the city, my man fearlessly followed God’s leading and trusted His provision for our family. I witnessed how this man undertook one impossible task after another, and saw a deserted land and run-down house being transformed. In the midst of all the busyness, he is a happy and content man. The tyranny of emergency didn’t steal away his joy and creativity. More importantly, I saw how those earthly challenges have pushed him to focus even more on things above.

It’s easy to quote Bible verses, or talk about doing everything for the Lord. However, in reality, our values about lifestyles, work, vacation, traditions, food, etc. are all affected by the world we are living in. The definitions of things we think we know have changed over the years. We may pray that God will provide XYZ job openings or be accepted by desired colleges, but is going out to work or going to college even God’s will? Pause for a moment. Does this all make sense? We tend to spend more time focusing on the seating on the airplane, rather than where the plane is even going. Are there lies in the culture we are living in? Does our culture give approvals and even applause towards sins in some areas?

Let’s unfold a little bit further. In human history, our work, like everything else, is marred by sin. Various jobs in different cultures are labeled by different classes. One noble job in a certain period of time may become low-class jobs in another. Dirty physical labor tends to be looked down upon in human history across cultures. Work itself shouldn’t be classified as superior or inferior, as human society is accustomed to do. As Christians seeking priorities in daily life decisions, we are to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness first. If we are in God’s will, we can confidently give thanks to God the Father through Jesus in whatever we do.

What the world values can be very different from what the Bible teaches. Jesus taught his disciples “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5) and, I am assuming, all the glorious work involved with the earth will also be inherited. The promised land is both for Israel literally speaking, and prophetically speaking for all believers to inherit one day in the new Heaven and new Earth! God put the first man in the garden to “work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15). The labor work was assigned to the sinless Adam as a gift and blessing. Jesus Himself worked with his hands as a carpenter. Paul, an apostle set apart for the Gospel of God, was a tent-maker, who worked diligently with his hands to support the ministry he was called to.

Intelligent physical labor, getting married, managing a household, having children and grandchildren all contribute to the core of human life. Modern life seems to walk away from the original basic beautiful design of simple living. The Industrial revolution has sped up the bias against physical labor. More people left the land and opted for urban jobs. Families are scattered rather than working on the family economy together as one household. Values and traditions are greatly shaken, when more women are working full time outside of homes. Couples are living together without getting married. Even those married may not stay married, or even exchange their natural desires for same sex relations. Unborn children are aborted. Born children are sent away for someone else to train, or being neglected. Children’s children don’t know who their dads or grandparents are.

The vicious cycle keeps going and unfortunately growing exponentially. The prophet Isaiah gave people in Judah warnings of the consequences of their rebellion against the true God. When there is no fear of God, we lose judgment, discernment, moral compass, and simply make up our own self-righteous rules to live by. People will call evil good and good evil, put darkness for light and light for darkness, put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 5:20). Raising children in such a fallen world, we need fathers, more than ever, seeking after God’s own heart. What a blessing to have a father in our house whose heart is turned to their children!

Psalm 128 describes the blessings of a married man with wife and children, but this is not prescriptive. You are not commanded to marry to receive the blessings. Psalm 128 is one of the 15 short songs of ascents, also called Pilgrim Songs. God’s people traveled uphill to the holy temple for yearly festivals. The closest modern application I can think of for our family would be when we attend yearly homeschool conferences, the man of the house might lead the family to sing a few worship songs together in the car. Or it could be on the way to a major church worship or family worship events for special holidays.

As Christians, we are called to rejoice in all circumstances in the Lord. Physical labor is a blessing. Desk work is a blessing. Marriage is a blessing. Singleness is a blessing. Having children is a blessing. Childlessness is a blessing. Being wealthy and healthy is a blessing. Facing various trials or losses is a blessing, though we may not feel like it for the moment. The list goes on… The key point is to fear the Lord in all we do, wherever we are. We can trust our loving Father to work for the good of his people in all things as we follow His will.

Looking back, I am eternally grateful that decades ago, one God-fearing man answered the call to leave the comforts of the States and go to China. By faith, he took me, a native Chinese, as his wife! He is my man and I am his woman, under God’s covenant. After ten years in China, four years of married life, we were comfortable with where we were, but again by faith, we left everything behind and came to live in America. By faith, we are called to go wherever God leads but are willing to stay wherever He has called us to stay. We bought our first fixer-upper house when my second son was born. It was quite a learning curve to tackle the house-restoration assignment. A lot of sweat and labor poured out on that city house with lots of help from my father-in-law, who is with Jesus now in Heaven. We made a lot of memories there! But when the time came to leave the house, family and friends we love, by faith, we could trust the good Lord and His leading.

How about you? Do you see how God is writing your story? How is God’s amazing grace urging you to live a holy life for Him in your daily routine? What are those hard choices God has led you to in following Him? Know that you are blessed if there’s a God-given fear in your heart. Psalm 128 is not a to-do list to be happy but a way of life for believers! This psalm gives a glimpse of the Garden of Eden and God’s first commandment to multiply. As we fear the Lord, Satan has no room to deceive us. Work is NOT a curse. Marriage is NOT a bondage. Children are NOT a burden. God’s Church will grow as Christian families grow, both physically and spiritually! Jesus, our bridegroom, WILL come back for His Bride, the Church!!

Which season are you in now? Sometimes, summer lingers a little longer like this year. Eventually, the day time will get shorter, fall and winter will come sooner than we would like to admit. With the heat wave gone, another heat may arise! As livestock breeders, you might appreciate the natural cycle of the breeding season for some animals as the temperature drops. As the elementary nature study teaches the pupils, the instinct to reproduce and multiply is not only limited to the mammals. Broody hens will faithfully sit on the eggs until they see chicks hatched. Certain plants die soon after blooming or fruiting. Many insects die after mating! Mission accomplished and the life cycle is finished and fulfilled for them!

So how about the human race, who bears God’s image? Thank Goodness, we don’t normally die after mating or giving birth. We human beings are also designed to be able to breed all year round so we can celebrate birthdays all the time! :-) Are we using our free will for God’s glory in terms of family planning? Or are we, as a race, losing our reproductive instinct and ability, as we consume the modern culture and diet?

Just like the unusual summer extension, we are grateful to be in the calling of parenting in our 50s and late 40s. Again, society may say you are done with child-bearing after a certain age, or you should stop having children after a certain number of children. Each family has different situations for sure in family planning. However, if the Lord is stirring your heart to receive the blessings of more children, do you have faith to receive them? It was and still is a faith struggle for us, but the Lord is faithful and He provides. We are grateful for the friends we have met He has provided to encourage us in this path of faith. I pray this post may serve that purpose of inspiration as well.

Since I rarely finish a post at one sitting, by the time this post is getting close to being published, fall is in full swing here. However, looking back we have no regrets for the summer. We are actually hitting 95 degrees again in mid-October here! I have learned not to put away summer clothes too soon in Missouri or should I say baby clothes as well? :-) (My son was helping me dig out boxes of baby clothes tucked way back in the attic. We gave away most of the baby clothes but saved a few favorites for various sizes.)

Are there things we wanted to accomplish during the summer that are not done? Absolutely! Do we miss summer already? Kind of. Life is never going to be perfect in each season here on Earth. We are to embrace each season as life unfolds and make the most of it with our best effort by His grace. For the last few super hot days, I encouraged the children to enjoy summer activities they could think of one more time. One boy came up with the idea of using sprinklers under the trampoline! We also went to visit a creek in a park and had fun catching little fish and water play.

Well, dear sisters or whoever is reading this far, do you want to be blessed and happy? Do you fear the living God, who sees and knows all things? He loves you and wants to set you free from bondage of sin and lies. He wants to bless you! Fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge and wisdom. Rejoice with trembling in the Lord whatever season you are in right now. Serve the Lord with fear and give thanks to the life giver, God, our Father, through His Son Jesus Christ!

Further learning:

• Psalm 127 & 128 from the Holy Bible
• From Generations Media Network (9/22/2026): Birthrate Implosion or Mass Immigration? The Third Option No One Talks About