SERIES: Psalms, Cries of the Heart
Straight Arrows
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note: This was a fifth Sunday, and the service was devoted to musical worship, baptism, child dedication, communion, and a brief message.
Introduction: We’re delighted to have our families worshiping together this morning. The Children’s Ministry is taking a one-week break between Passport to Adventure and the Fall Sunday School program, and therefore the children are here with us in the service this morning. We welcome you and we hope you enjoy singing with us and observing baptism, communion, and child dedication.
When I was in the jungles of Venezuela in July, I bartered with the Yanomami Indians for some artifacts that would help me remember my trip. Among the things I brought back were some bows and arrows. These weapons are an essential part of the life of the Yanomami Indians. Little boys have their own bows and arrows by the time they are four years old, and they learn to hunt by the time they are eight or nine.
These weapons are made by hand, of course. The bow itself is made from a part of the palm tree. It is very strong and has a lot of spring to it. The string is made by taking veins from large jungle leaves and weaving them into a strong cord. The arrowheads are fired over an open fire. They are generally made of wood, with a bone barb tied to it. The feathers come from jungle birds. This one got bunged up from being carries several thousand miles on airplanes.
But it’s the arrow itself that I want to focus our attention upon. I bought this arrow from a warrior in the little village of Dabashewateli. I gave him a small can of sardines for this arrow. He thought he got a really good deal. So did I.
This is an arrow of average size. Some are even longer. It is made from young bamboo shoots. Notice how straight it is. The most important thing about an arrow is that it be straight. A crooked arrow will not reach its target, no matter how sharp the arrowhead, no matter how perfect the feathers, no matter how strong the bow. Finding straight bamboo shoots are the key to good hunting in the rain forest.
Three words come to my mind when I think of the Yanomami and their arrows: pride, protection, and provision. The Indian warriors take a lot of pride in their arrows. They work for many hours on each arrow; they want it to be just right. In fact, they know their very lives can depend upon having accurate arrows.
Protection is the second word. The arrows provide protection for the Indians from their enemies—both human enemies and animal enemies, like the leopard and the anaconda. They are lightning quick at releasing their arrows in the direction of any danger.
The arrows also mean provision, for nearly every kind of meat the Indians eat is obtained with the bow and arrow. They shoot birds, snakes, fish, monkeys, tapir, and anything else that moves. The difference between a good arrow and a bad one is the difference between eating and going hungry.
Pride, protection, provision—that is what the arrows mean to a Yanomami warrior. Now I want you to remember that as we read Psalm 127. We read the first verse of this Psalm last Sunday, but I want us to read all five verses today. Read it with me, will you?
“Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. {2} In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves. {3} Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. {4} Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. {5} Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.”
We noted last Sunday how important it is that we are dependent upon God in our work. A builder or a watchman must be diligent, but diligence is not enough. Unless God is involved, unless He is allowed to be in charge, all the effort in the world will not produce success.
In fact, you can get up before dawn and stay up until midnight, thinking that the harder you work the more successful you will be, but that’s not necessarily the case. The race is not necessarily to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. There comes a point when we have to turn it all over to God and relax a little: “He grants sleep to those He loves,” Solomon tells us.
Now I want you to notice something. The kind of house Solomon is talking about in this Psalm is not primarily a house to live in or even a church house, though what he says here is true of both. I think he is talking primarily about a home, a family. Unless the Lord builds a home, the parents labor in vain. I get this from the fact that in verse 3 God turns our attention to children. “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.”
That is not the normal view today. There are many who consider children a nuisance. Children are being aborted by the thousands every day. They are being abused by the tens of thousands. They are neglected by the millions. An increasing percentage of baby busters and Gen-Xers are deciding not to have children at all because their careers are too important to them. Those who are having children are often waiting until their late thirties or early forties, thus limiting their families to one or at most two children. Large families are increasingly rare and are viewed by some people as oddities, or worse.
How do we square these modern attitudes all around us with what God’s Word says—that children are a gift from His hand and a reward? In fact, Solomon goes on to say, “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” Remember what we said a few moments ago—arrows are a source of pride, protection, and provision for a Yanomami Indian. Children should be the same for their parents.
We should be proud of our sons and daughters and let them know it. Just as a Yanomami warrior spends many hours on each arrow, striving to see it turn out just right, so parents should take godly pride in each child, devoting enormous time and effort to helping that child reach his or her full potential. The Bible says that every child is special. God creates them in their mother’s womb. They are fearfully and wonderfully made. They are woven together in the secret place and all their days are ordained by God before the children are even born. That’s what Psalm 139 says about children.
We should also view our children as protection for us. Solomon’s last statement hints at that. They are protection from loneliness, even from attack. Children may argue with their parents, and sometimes they act as if they were smarter than their parents, but when a parent is under attack, children are usually the first to come to mom’s or dad’s protection. Children instinctively know that they owe their lives to their parents, and even if they don’t always show it, they are generally grateful and protective of their parents.
Children also make provision for their parents in their old age. This may have been truer in the past than it is today. In fact, I occasionally hear from parents who are still providing for their children even after they reach their 20’s or 30’s. But God’s plan was for children to be the social safety net for their parents in their old age, just as the parents have been the social safety net for their children when they were young. One of the most beautiful things to behold is to see people caring for their aged parents—either in their home or, if necessary, in a retirement facility—communicating with them regularly, visiting with them whenever possible, and letting them know they are loved and appreciated. And by the same token, one of the saddest things to see is a parent abandoned in old age by ungrateful children.
No wonder Solomon writes of children, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate.” The Yanomami don’t use quivers for their arrows—the arrows are too long. But they do use quivers for their blow gun darts. Here’s a small one I purchased—for another can of sardines. But the point of Psalm 27 is clear—the man and the woman who have a lot of children are uniquely blessed. We should praise large families, not criticize them.
Children, I’m glad you’re in our service today and I want to address you for a moment. Remember how important it is for a warrior’s arrow to be straight? The same is true for children—they must walk the straight path God has outlined for them if they are to be a reward to their parents, as God has designed them to be. When a child becomes crooked—through lying or taking drugs or becoming rebellious or treating his parents with disrespect—that special relationship that God designed between parent and child is damaged. What God designed as a reward and a source of joy for both parent and child can become a source of shame and sorrow for both.
There’s a 17-year-old boy at St. John’s Mercy Hospital who has been fighting for his life this week. The reason he’s in intensive care with many broken bones and crushed lungs and swollen brain is that he has followed a crooked path. I am sharing this, not to make the situation more difficult for John and Phyllis Hayn and their daughter Karen, but rather I am sharing it with their permission so that other young people might learn from some of Kurt’s mistakes.
Kurt is a kid who is deeply loved by his parents and his sister, but he has often allowed the wrong friends to take him down a crooked path, a path that involved quitting school, drinking, missing curfew, and generally violating the standards his parents tried to teach him. Monday night he was out way past his curfew. When his parents called him on the car phone, he promised to come home right away, but he didn’t. Somewhere between 3 and 4 in the morning he rolled his car several times and struck a telephone pole out on Highway 109. The helicopter barely got him to the hospital in time. He has a long, long recovery ahead of him.
My heart goes out to the Hayn family, and to Kurt himself. I pray to God that this will be a wake-up call for him and that he will take the opportunity he has been given to turn his life over to Jesus Christ. But the point of my sharing this today is that there are many young people here, and I urge you to reject the temptation to go down that crooked path. Instead, I urge you to be straight arrows for God in the safe quiver of a Christian family and a believing church.
A final word to parents: Derek Kidner observes wisely, “It is not untypical of God’s gifts that first they are liabilities, or at least responsibilities, before they become obvious assets. The greater their promise, the more likely that these sons will be a handful before they are a quiverful.”[i] Yes, parents, our children may be a handful, and yes, children, your parents may be a handful as well, but God has given us to each other because He loves us, and we will be happiest when we are allowing Him to build the house that is our home.
DATE: August 31, 1997
Tags:
Yanomami Indians
Children
Parents
[i] Derek Kidner, Psalms 73-150, 442.