Psalm 128

I’m continually amazed at the “math” of heaven. It runs so contrary to the math we learn in school. For instance, we all know what 1+1 is, right? It’s the first math problem we ever learn: 1+1=2. But not so with God.

At the outset, when God brings 1 man and 1 woman together, we end up with 1 flesh. 1+1=1. By the time this “1 flesh” is done having a family, the equation might be 1+1=5 or (in the extreme case of a family like the Duggars) 1+1=20! I have to chuckle when I think that God would fail a first-grade math quiz.

God doesn’t know how to add. But He sure knows how to bless, and I really liked the imagery of children and olive shoots in this psalm. Here’s something I read about the olive tree today: “The tree grows very slowly but it attains a great age. It is difficult to kill the olive tree by cutting it down because new sprouts are sent up from the root and all around the margins of the old stump, often forming a grove of two to five trunks, all from a single root which originally supported only one tree.” (John Klotz)

So, the olive tree starts out as a tree with a single trunk—and ends up with anywhere from two to five trunks, all from a single root. That certainly sounds like a great metaphor for God’s family mathematics!

When we do things God’s way, the result is blessings and more blessings. God may not know how to add, but He sure knows how to bless! Our homes can be a testimony to this fact. As William Hare wrote, “Before the fall, Paradise was man’s home; since the fall, home has been his Paradise.”

That is only true when we follow the One who is into multiplying blessings!