Blessed to Bless

Each January I ask the Lord for a new spiritual focus for the year. I pray the theme will increasingly permeate my life as the months go by. Here are recent themes... A Slave of Christ (2013), Better to Give Than to Get (2014), Keep in Step with the Spirit (2015), Listen and Love (2016), Join the Dance Procession (2017), Make Disciples (2018), Looking Up (2019).

Here is my 2020 theme and the story behind it...

Our daugter Sage was to have read "Telling The Old Testament Story" by Brad Kelle last semester at Pt. Loma Nazarene University. I try to have an idea what my kids are studying while in college. To my dismay, Sage did not read the book because the professor did not test on the book. In any event, I highly recommend the book as it follows the broad contours of the OT story... how God chose a people so they might be his people who would bring hope, redemption and blessing to all of creation.

The majority of the OT story arc is about the people’s unwillingness to trust in their unseen God. It appears easier to rely on the idols, leaders and foreign powers they could see.

God first called Abram to become Abraham. He set him apart with a new name. He said he would bless him. But not so he would benefit, but so he would be a vessel of blessing. A channel. An instrument. God blessed him so OTHERS would be blessed. Initially it would be those Abraham encountered, but God sees far and wide. He intended his blessing to flow outward into the surrounding lands and into future times. In both space and time.

This is what God calls his people to be and do. To be a blessing and to bless.

So my theme for 2020 is "blessed to bless."

There are a great many ways we could bless. Here is a short list.

• Smile at people.
• Another practice I have adopted is smiling before I meet someone, get into a Zoom meeting or phone call, before I enter a room. There is a power that affects your body and soul when you tell your face to smile.
• Ask someone their name. I do this for waiters, checkout clerks, rental car agents. Thank them when they have served you.
• Pronounce a blessing. Depending on the context I may say either “The Lord bless you and Keep you” or “I’d like to give you an ancient Hebrew blessing, “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” This by the way comes from Numbers 6.
• The best way to bless someone is by helping them become more like Jesus. Here is your invitation to write down your 12.

Here is a longer list. 

The Lord has added a new lens through which I now see every encounter…"how can I be a blessing?" It gives me great joy to operate in this realm of the Spirit. It is one way the kingdom comes.

When I was driving back from LAX late on a Saturday night, I applied this filter. How can I be a blessing while driving on the southbound 405? The answer…don’t be unkind behind the wheel. So I contented myself with driving gently endeavoring to honor those in the cars around me.

I pray you would ask the Spirit of God to give you this lens.

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