The fifth spiritual practice to cultivate for a Jesus-focused life is Bless. The Way of Love defines that as sharing our faith, and unselfishly giving and serving. Blessing is verbal and physical as well as spiritual, an activity as well as an orientation. We all know how to bless superficially – we do it whenever someone sneezes. But do we know how to bless so that lives are transformed? That means learning how to channel God’s blessing. All blessing originates with God.
The first step in fostering the practice of blessing is to orient ourselves to expect it. I realized this one day when my beloved cat was seriously ill. While waiting for her vet appointment, I went to work, and walking down the stairs of my church, praying anxiously, “Please, please.” This thought popped up, “Expect blessing.” I remembered, "Oh yeah. God is in the business of blessing!” We don’t get to specify the blessing, and it may come in areas other than where we’re looking for it, but we are to expect blessing. It completely changed my outlook on prayer.
As we tune are awareness, we realize we are walking in blessing; swimming in blessing. We don’t need to ask God to bless this or that – the practice is cultivating our awareness of the blessing that already surrounds us, always, as we live in God. Cultivating that awareness includes learning to identify the “un-blessings,” the negatives that have hijacked our attention, and turn from them back to Jesus.
God is always blessing, because it is God’s nature to bless – and God invites us to join him in blessing. Here's my second Bono quote this week - some years ago, he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in DC. His words stay with me: "A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it…I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea… And this wise man said: stop. He said, “Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed.” Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing. And that is what He’s calling us to do."
The spiritual practice of blessing involves an active component: being blessing to those around us, to those whom God loves (and, as we know, God loves everyone…). Blessing includes giving out of our abundance, and beyond, stretching our plenty to meet another’s scarcity. Our offerings to support God’s mission through our congregations are blessing. Stopping to help someone who is hurt, and doing all we can to see them restored, as the Samaritan outsider did in the parable Jesus told about pleasing God, is blessing. Helping to resolve conflict, standing for justice and fostering peace in the power and love of God’s Spirit are blessing, more needed in our times than ever. We join God in the blessing God is already giving.
And we are to speak blessing. We know the power of words to build up or tear down; most of us have experienced both in how we speak to others, and to ourselves. Deepening the practice of blessing means training ourselves to use our words only to give life, to give God glory and other people affirmation, to let our words wrap a web of light and love around other people. Just as we were “worded,” spoken holy by the decision of God, through Christ, so God invites us to participate in that blessing by “wording” others whole, chosen, beloved. What a world we can help bring into being!
So, as we deepen our engagement with the spiritual practice of blessing, we learn to expect blessing, to be blessing, to speak blessing, knowing that we are awash in the blessing of our glorious God. Bless and be blessed!
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