Cause and Effect
I remember watching Ranger Walker on television a few years back, and this quote has stayed with me, "Every choice has a consequence.”
Bennie McWha speaks to this in his article on “cause and effect”, taken from Psalm 128:1-4. He poses this question: Why should God give you happiness?
If you are not experiencing the Lord’s blessings in your life, you should take an inventory of your life. The Psalmist wrote, “Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways” (v.1). This seems to be a cause and effect sequence. The cause is described as reverencing (“feareth the LORD”) and obeying the Lord (“walketh in his ways”). The effect is happiness (“Blessed”).
If you are not experiencing the effects, it may be because you have not been accomplishing the cause. God wants His children to be happy, but they will not be unless they live as He teaches.
God also wants you to be financially happy. “For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee” (v. 2). This condition does not describe a person who has everything he wants, but it describes one who has everything he needs. The greatest financial happiness results when you learn to enjoy what God provides and to give to others.
God also wants you to enjoy family happiness. “Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table: (v.3). It seems that families that have many children experience greater happiness, “children are a heritage (gift) of the LORD” (Psalm 127:3). God gives children to encourage families to enjoy His provisions and His blessings of relationships.
It seems that everyone who observes the birth of a child cannot keep from being in awe of what God does. A mother had a miscarriage in her first trimester, and the nurses brought the tiny baby to her—just a few inches long, but a perfectly formed little boy. She wept because she will never see him grow up to become a man. Life is truly a special gift from God and so is happiness. “Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD” (v. 4).