You are Blessed by God

You may not realize it, but you are blessed. You may not feel it, but you are blessed. You may not even expect it, but you are blessed. About the only time you realize you have been blessed by God is when you look back at where you have been.

At that time, Jesus stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.  And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all.  And he lifted up his eyes on His disciples, and said: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.  Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied.  Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh.  Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.”

Luke 6.17-23

The reading today from the Gospel of Luke include parts of The Beatitudes, or Blessings. The passage changes how we think about blessings from God. Instead of thinking of blessings only as when good things happen, we are told we are blessed when we are poor, hungry or sad.

Poor, hungry and sad are the last experiences we associate with the blessings of God, but He says otherwise. If God says we are blessed, then we are blessed. That means WE are the ones who must change our understanding, not God. That is another example of repentance.

Thinking like God thinks, we are not blessed when good things happen now. We are blessed when we endure bad things now and turn to God. The ‘good things’ are promised in the future. We are told to “leap for joy” at our struggle. Our reward from God is coming later.

Here’s a hint when something is hurting. Don’t ask why God isn’t helping you. Say, “God must really love me to trust me with this struggle.” God blesses us because He loves us. When He trusts us with struggle, He blesses us with patience and hope in Him.

Take a moment and ‘test’ this theory of blessings. Think back to a struggle that God trusted you with and remember how He helped you. Remember how you turned to Him and He guided you out of darkness. Remember how you thought everything was a lost cause, but it wasn’t.

Looking back, you see the blessings that God had already given to you. If you had not turned to Him, you would have remained lost. If you had not allowed Him to guide you out, you would still be in darkness. The fact you made it through the struggle you can now see as a blessing.

The blessings of God can’t always be felt, but there are always coming. It is up to us to recognize God’s blessings and be thankful for them. If all we want from God is a ‘good life’ and ‘easy path’ we will never see His blessings. We will be too focused on our good life.

When we ignore the blessings of God, we don’t know how to turn to Him. The crowd in today’s Gospel went to God for healing. In healing them, God then taught them to understand their blessings. Now it is our turn to understand. God has already blessed us. We just didn’t see it.

Lucky for us, now we see it, or at least we can look for it. I will admit blessings can be hard to find, but today’s Gospel lesson reminds us, we ARE blessed in struggle. We just must realize it. We just must turn to God and He will lead us out.