Want Antifragile Kids? Make Them Listen to This Kind of Music. [Psalm 129]

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Remember, these “Songs of Ascents” are the songs that the Israelite pilgrims would sing as they made their way up to Jerusalem every year for the big festivals. The boy Jesus certainly sang these with his family.

Think about how singing something like this would shape a child for life!

 
 

Something antifragile is something that not only withstands hardship but actually thrives as a result of hardship.

(Americans are not antifragile these days.)

 
 

Psalm 129

A Song of Ascents

1 “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth”—
    let Israel now say—
2 “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth,
    yet they have not prevailed against me.
3 The plowers plowed upon my back;
    they made long their furrows.”

So, the Israelites taught their kids to SING that, though they had been sorely oppressed by their enemies— “they plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows”—they were not defeated.

They acknowledge difficulty—they sing about it!—but they all tell themselves they’ve not been defeated.

Can you imagine singing that your whole life? Can you imagine how antifragile that would make you?

 
 

The psalm closes with a defiant statement that God will defeat Israel’s enemies:

4 The Lord is righteous;
    he has cut the cords of the wicked.
5 May all who hate Zion
    be put to shame and turned backward!
6 Let them be like the grass on the housetops,
    which withers before it grows up,
7 with which the reaper does not fill his hand
    nor the binder of sheaves his arms,
8 nor do those who pass by say,
    “The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
    We bless you in the name of the Lord!”

It strikes me that this is EXACTLY the kind of music we need to be singing and memorizing these days.

What do you think?

Roadtrip Music - Psalm 127

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The last Psalms post I wrote was for Psalm 79 on June 30! Today is my first Monday back after taking the last 6 weeks off, and today we find ourselves at Psalm 127. Let’s look at it.

 
 

Songs of Ascents=Roadtrip Music

Psalms 120-134 each have the same superscription: “A Song of Ascents”. These psalms were sung by the Israelite pilgrims as they made they way “up” to the Temple Mount for the big religious festivals every year. (To the Israelites, you always go “up” to Jerusalem, even if you are coming from a higher elevation. Mount Zion was spiritually high, so to speak.)

So, these psalms were roadtrip music.

No doubt the boy Jesus sang these songs as he made the 3 week journey from the Galilee to Jerusalem every year!

 
 

What are you listening to as you make your journey through life? With what are you filling your thoughts?

 
 

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.

127 Unless the Lord builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
    and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
    for he gives to his beloved sleep.

The Lord is the ultimate source of all strength and success, and unless we are building on his principles, what we are doing will be both exhausting and ephemeral.

The reason so many people are so tired is because they are trying to do it on their own.

What would it look like for you to partner with the Holy Spirit today in whatever it is you are doing?

 
 

P.S.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
    the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
    are the children of one's youth.
5 Blessed is the man
    who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
    when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

What a great image! “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.”