Blessings Defined

To those of you who were thinking of me this past week as I worked on my talk for the brunch, thank you!! I love how God shows up in my life through the study of His Word and through sisters in Christ who help me push forward through challenges. I wish I could relay to you the whole story of this past week, but it would be much too long. Suffice it to say, He is faithful!! The following is the intro. to my talk if you are interested.

Growing up in the south, this word “blessing” is thrown around alot in common everyday conversation. It is a word used by Christians and non-Christians alike. It is kind of like grits and coke. It is part of the culture. And because of this, I think the word loses a bit of its real meaning sometimes. Last week I googled the word blessing. I wonder how closely their definitions agree with what you think of when you hear the word blessing?

*praying at the dinner table is “blessing” the meal
*a town in Texas is named Blessing
*going to your parents and asked for their approval on your marriage
*sympathetic thing to say when someone sneezes
*a herd of unicorns is called a blessing (I didn’t know that one either)
*divinely appointed gift

I am willing to bet that if I went over to Kohls and stopped random people to ask them what a blessing is, most would probably respond with something like this...

it is something good that happens to you.

And they are right. Blessings are good things and we all enjoy them.

But the best definition of blessing is that it is a gift from God.

Blessings come to us wrapped up in different packages. There are the obvious blessings in our life that when we see them we immediately recognize them for the wonderful things they are. These are satin blessings, like romance, dear friendships, a lovely home, special abilities and talents, fun vacations. And then there are denim blessings. Still good and very necessary in our enjoyment of life, but not so flashy as satin blessings. These are things like cars that run and get you to where you need to go. Maybe it is a job, not necessarily your dream job but certainly a fine job and there for you when you get to work in the morning. Maybe it is good health, and your kids not coming down with strep when all the other kids in their class do. And then, there are burlap blessings. These are the ones that often come to us in disguise and in times of hardship. These gifts don't appear to be valuable or desirable. In fact, burlap is rough to the touch and often frayed at the edges. But inside the burlap packaging are sweet spiritual gifts like peace, hope, love, grace, forgiveness.

All three types of gifts qualify as blessings and all of them are wonderful things that we desire and need, given to us from the hand of God. So how should we respond to them? Tomorrow, I will post my thoughts on that question!