God Bless You
One of my kids was telling me about their soccer team. One player insisted on wearing a certain number. This teammate was convinced they wouldn’t play well unless they had that specific jersey number.
But from my kid’s perspective, this attachment to a number was incomprehensible. How could a particular number enhance your athletic ability?
Sometimes we need a fresh set of eyes to see that the normal is weird.
Lucky numbers are all around us. People have their favorite digits for the lottery. In Chinese culture, the number 8 is associated with wealth. And who wants to sleep on the 13th floor of a hotel?
It’s not just numerology. Grandma is looking down on us, St. Christopher keeps us from a car accident, and if the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow, then spring will come early.
I once spent a summer in Tajikistan, where I learned about the evil eye, a powerful curse. In response, many homes featured a protective amulet that was said to protect the property and its inhabitants.
Why do we hold onto these ideas?
Maybe, in part, because the world is chaotic. Who predicted COVID, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or a thousand other disruptive, ‘black swan’ events? When the world feels out of control, we grasp for something that feels stable and secure.
Our lives are mysterious. Why did my friend get the promotion, when I was the one who stayed late at the office? Why did I get cancer, but not my neighbor who smokes all the time?
If we soberly consider the uncertainty of our personal futures, we all have reason for anxiety.
Maybe you’re too religious to buy into these superstitions.
Still, when I listen to people pray, it often sounds like a plea for prosperity. Most prayers are for health or wealth, to get better or to get a job. I think God cares about these concerns and that our petitions are sincere. But I sense that we want God to bless us.
Others take a more ‘honest’ posture. In doing so, they bury their hope. Instead of foolishly wishing for a sky fairy to bring us the goods, we’re going to have to take responsibility to make it happen ourselves. From this perspective, it’s liberating to accept the brute cruelty of the universe, and respond with a defiant attempt to make things better.
On the surface, we might appear quite different: superstitious, spiritual, or skeptical.
But I think that if we listen to the whispers of our hearts, deep down, we’re all desperate for a blessing.
We all want to be blessed:
We are all searching for a circumstantial blessing. We want health, wealth, and prosperity.
And we want a relational blessing. Every child wants to hear their mom and dad say, “I love you. I’m proud of you.”
The question is whether or not these blessings are realistic - and how to get them.
In God’s presence, I’ve slowly meditated on Psalm 1 for the past week. I’ve noticed that it tells us where true blessing can be found.
It starts, “Blessed is the one who…”
Walter Käser says the expression we find here speaks to “the blessings of covenantal life and the joy of living continually in the presence of God” (Expositors Bible Commentary, Notes on Psalm 1).
This is a blessing that is continuous from the Old Testament to the New. Yet in Jesus, we see it bursting into fulfillment.
For instance, Ephesians 2:22 teaches that “in him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.”
To our astonishment, God’s dwelling place is no longer the holy of holies within the Temple, but he resides within the community of his beloved sons and daughters.
And the blessing is not just of YHWH’s presence, but we now understand that the one God is Trinitarian. Our Triune God - the Father, Son, and Spirit work as one to flood our hearts with blessing!
And this blessing gives us assurance. Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us, we enjoy a confident hope that we will forever know the glory of God (see Romans 5:1-5). Because we have peace with God, we know that one day we will have a comprehensive peace with ourselves, one another, and all creation, forever.
May God bless you.
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