How joyful are those who fear the Lord—all who follow his ways! You will enjoy the fruit of your labor. How joyful and prosperous you will be! Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home. Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table. That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear him.
Something changes when you have a family. While God allows us to enjoy the fruit of our labor, it is amazing the joy and fulfillment that comes from those few special people around you. When you think of all the ambitions we have and the dreams we chase after, nothing compares to the experience of sitting at your dining room table and looking around at those precious people. Every season of life has its joy, but when your wife is a “fruitful grapevine” and your children are “vigorous olive trees” sitting around your table, that is a joy that cannot be surpassed. Typically, you live in that moment with all of its challenges and stress and you just try to survive be the best parent, husband, Christian you can be. Unfortunately, you don’t know those are the good old days while you are in them; before you know it you blink and those days are gone.
This is the strange irony of being a parent. You don’t know how good you have it until they have grown and gone. We are so busy trying to prepare for “what is next” that we forget to enjoy the moments God gives us in the present. Yet, we don’t want our kids to be stuck. We want them to be independent, strong, and completely devoted to God. They need to grow and they need to leave—this is good and this is also the gift of God. The real secret is to be content at whatever stage of life you find yourself and to make the most of the present moments. Even when they are gone, beautiful and wonderful days are coming in the future. I love my wife more than ever and I appreciate her more today than yesterday. Every season has its gifts. Later in the same psalm, the writer says “May you live to enjoy your grandchildren.” I love my kids and I often reflect with nostalgia on those days when they were little, but I wouldn’t trade this season of grandchildren for anything. God’s mercies are new every morning and His gifts to us are precious each and every day.
