I woke up the other morning thinking about being blessed by God. “Blessed” is a word Christians use frequently. We come by it naturally as the Scriptures speak of blessings and being blessed a lot in both the Old and the New Testaments.
Merriam-Webster defines blessed with phrases like, “Enjoying happiness,” “bringing pleasure, contentment, or good fortune.” We all surely want happiness, pleasure, contentment, and good fortune in this life, but is that the way we understand being blessed in the Scriptures?
The Bible speaks of being blessed differently from how the world thinks of it. One the primary passages on being blessed in found in the Beatitudes. In the Beatitudes blessing is linked to poverty, mourning, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and even persecution.
To understand God’s blessings is to understand that they affect the inner part of us. They are not dependent upon circumstances. God’s spiritual blessings are a deep abiding joy that cannot be shaken by lack, sorrow, deprivation, persecution, war or any other trial or difficulty we face in this life.
James reminds us that “blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the LORD has promised to those who love him.” [1:12]
I doubt we would find, “perseveres under trial” as part of the definition of “blessed” in our contemporary dictionaries, but we find it, and phrases like it, in the Scriptures.
When I think of being blessed by God, I think of three things. Tomorrow!
