Bless Your Heart
As a native Atlantan, my heart has been blessed.
“Bless your heart” is like gravy - it can cover any situation.
Sometimes it is offered like a refreshing glass of sweet tea. When you’re parched by the summer heat, it feels good when a pure heart pours out a blessing. It means, ‘I see you’re hurting deep inside, and I care.’
Of course, sometimes “bless your heart” is said by friends who truly care for one another, but some teasing is in order. “You only needed five tries to park your car, bless your heart.”
Often, the phrase is a ‘delicious morsel’ that makes it fun to hurt others with gossip and slander (Proverbs 18:8). To maintain respectability while doing what is dishonorable, a spiritual, ‘caring’ veneer is needed.
To be blessed is a core human need. So, lamentably, we need to consider how it can be twisted. The truth is, curses are often concealed as blessings.
For instance, immediately after God blesses Adam and Eve, Satan comes in to help out. He points out that, actually, contrary to what they’ve been told, the fruit of the tree is good and desirable. It will open their eyes and improve their lives! To deliver his curse, he offers a ‘blessing.’
As Dr. Diane Langberg observes, “Sadly, one of the most powerful weapons of deception is the use of spiritual language. It does, after all, carry the seeming weight of God behind it” (Suffering and the Heart of God, 171).
As I’ve recovered from the spiritual abuse and toxic culture that I experienced at RZIM, I’ve sometimes reached out to friends to ask that they be an advocate. Sadly, sometimes I hear, ‘I’m too busy with ministry to help, but I’ll be praying for you.’
This ‘spiritual’ response always reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Important Ministry is no replacement for tending to the needs of someone who’s been beat up. And rationalizing it to ourselves or others with God language is an anti-apologetic.
By contrast, the apostle James instructed us, “If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself” (James 2:15-17).
Repeatedly and emphatically, the Scriptures tell us to expect religious practices and words that are divorced from love of God and love of neighbor. If our actions don’t bless others, then neither will our words.
Sadly, we can’t always penetrate the fog of deception. We’re vulnerable to being misled by others. But we can reclaim our agency by gaining discernment. We can learn how to decode when spiritual language is used to deceive.
How can we do this? Dr. Wade Mullen is an excellent resource. I’ve already mentioned Dr. Diane Langberg. You can see many case studies of religious abuse at Julie Roys’ website.
And we can go back to the source. Jesus was severely critical of those who used the power of God’s words to benefit themselves. The gospels show us a master at work. He said of the Pharisees, “On the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:38). In other words: if someone is posturing as a righteous person, look again. See if the inside and outside line up. Don’t take it for granted, but test the credibility of their spiritual presentation.
Still, for all the misuse of the word, we need a blessing. And God’s heart is to bless us. As Paul writes in Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.”
So how do I know my heart is truly blessed by God? When so many of God’s people have misused his words, how can we trust that God cares about us? Isn’t that just another trick?
Here’s the difference. God has demonstrated his love through sacrifice. As we read in 1 John 3:16-18,
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
May God bless you. And may you bless others.
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