Skip to main content

The Blessing

Over the past couple years I've had the privilege to be blessed and I don't mean in just the blessings of day to day life (though that is also true) but more specifically I'm referring to the blessing the pastor will declare at the end of the church service. When I was little didn't take much notice of it until I started thinking about the words. Now different pastors use different blessings but they usually involve God being gracious and granting peace. And these blessings unite us as believers more than you might think.

When I lived in Toronto I was blessed in Punjabi almost every Lord's Day. This first made me think of the amazingness of our God, that He not only understands other languages but also created them. You see, God is not the God who blesses only those who speak English and He will bless you even by using languages you don't understand. In the past six weeks I have been blessed in French, German, Italian, and English. It reminds me that my home church is not the only church there is. I have brothers and sisters who are being blessed in Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Portuguese, Korean, Norwegian, and Swedish  (not to mention all the languages I can't remember at this moment in time).

Next Sunday, when you are blessed, think about your brothers and sisters in other countries and pray for them. We may not understand each other but we understand that our God blesses us and one day we will be blessed eternally in heaven. Cool eh?

*interesting side note, if you live in North America you are actually among the last of God's children to be blessed because of the time changes.

Comments

  1. Mandee30 May 2013 at 08:18

    hmmm, very interesting reminder. :D Thank you for that. I look forward to thinking about that when I hear the blessing next Sunday.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Is Your Purpose?

 A couple weeks ago, a young woman asked me, "what is your purpose?" it kind of threw me off. Ok, it really threw me off. It seemed a bit touché to say "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" when she was looking for specifics. And I get why she's asking. My life does seem pretty random. Thirty-two years old, working on my BA, teaching music part time, working at a coffee shop part time, and living at least an hour from my closest family member. On paper it looks...well...it looks random. I get it. Kind of hard to pull a purpose out of the randomness.  I was talking to the Lord about it because sometimes, even for myself, the person living this life, it's hard to find a specific purpose in the randomness. Sometimes I wonder,  when I get to Heaven if I'm  going to have anything to offer God, if while other people show up with their kids, I'm going to hold out empty hands and say "it's just me." I mean, if He wants soldiers to defeat spiri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Body Image (1)

Contentedly situated in lawn chairs with our toes in the sand and the baby playing on a blanket at our feet, my friend and I watch her girls digging holes or running between the beach and the lake. Periodically, the girls run up to us to display the shells and rocks they've found. At one point, as the girls surround us, one of us adults comments on the baby being chubby (which she is, as a baby should be) after which one of the girls looks at me and says, "you're kind of chubby." She wasn't trying to be rude or smart, she was just being bluntly observant as children are. As I looked at I her and considered an answer, I thought of the baggage of body image that women have carried for generations, and I thought, I don't want her to carry this baggage too. I want better for her.   I replied, "you know, being a little chubby is actually a good thing. Our bodies function better and it helps keep us warm." This deep lesson was probably lost on her as she s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wasted Gifts? Wasted Time?

You know how you can read the Bible twice, ten times, a hundred times and yet there's still something you haven't noticed or thought about before? That's basically my relationship with 1 Samuel 16:12-23. This is where Samuel anoints David to be king (first he had to meet all David's other brothers because David was the youngest so he was out taking care of the sheep). After the family dinner with Samuel, the text shifts back to King Saul. Because King Saul had disobeyed God, God had removed His Spirit from Saul and sent an evil spirit to terrorize him. In order to sooth the king's suffering soul, Saul's servants go out looking for someone who can play music to make him feel better.  There's a lot to think about in these short verses but the verse that struck me is verse 18.  Then one of the young men said, "Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is a skillful musician, a might man of valor, a warrior, one prudent in speech, and a handso...
Post a Comment
Read more