How blessed do you feel? Do you feel blessed when you are struggling? Do you feel blessed when you are being laughed at for your faith? Do you feel blessed when you show mercy or are a peacemaker? Do you consider yourself to be as blessed as the apostles?
Jesus tells us in what we call the beatitudes that we are blessed in a multitude of situations. Some of those do not appear to us as being blessings. In fact, we may think of them as a hardship. Yet Jesus says we are blessed when they occur in our life.
We don’t often think of mourning as a blessing. But it does mean that we have had someone dear to us for years who has left us. Therefore, we have been blessed to have known them for a time. But we are also blessed when we mourn our sin and repent of it. That opens our heart for God to change us.
We may not think it is a blessing to be meek. But being meek does not mean we are pushovers, rather we are someone who puts others needs before our own. When we do this, God blesses us in ways we may not understand.
We may quickly agree that someone who is pure in heart is blessed. But do we understand why? Might I suggest that person is fully in tune with God, understanding what God wants of them, where they belong, and how much God loves them. In this way, we can go where God wants us to and do what he wants us to do.
Being blessed by God does not always look the way we think it should look. God works in the worst of circumstances and the best of circumstances. He blesses us where we are. He delights in blessing us.
I pray we all see the blessings God is pouring down on us. I pray we understand God can and does bless us in all circumstances. I pray each one of us will accept God’s blessing and praise him for them. See God’s blessings. Accept God’s blessings. Know you are blessed. Be thankful for God’s blessings.
Matthew 5:12 “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Marty Pressey 