God's Blessing

On Thanksgiving we sat at tables piled with food and shared stories with our families and our friends.  Part of our conversation may have included recounting the blessings God has given us.  After all isn’t that the foundation of Thanksgiving?  

Over the subsequent days I was wrestling with the idea of God’s blessings.  I receive emails, letters, read articles and Facebook posts about God’s blessings.  They usually have a context of an illness being healed, a treatment being successful, a job being found, a marriage being restored, a child being successful, something positive that has taken place in life. 

 

Certainly those are signs of God’s activities and blessings.  But what do we say or think when the treatment is unsuccessful, or the surgery fails, or the marriage falls apart, or we remain unemployed, or our kids don’t make the team? 

The Old Testament character, Job, experienced the best of life and significant times of pain, sorrow and loss.  He wrote:

            Naked I came from my mother's womb,

            and naked I will depart.

            The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;

            may the name of the LORD be praised. (Job 1:21)

Whether we experience goodness in life or difficulty, God’s name deserves to be honored and praised.  The above verses were the inspiration for contemporary Christian songwriter Matt Redman and his wife, Beth, to pen the song, “Blessed be Your Name”.  The verses express this sentiment:

            BLESSED BE YOUR NAME

            In the land that is plentiful,

            Where Your streams of abundance flow,

            Blessed be Your name.

            And blessed be Your name

            When I'm found in the desert place,

            Though I walk through the wilderness,

            Blessed be Your name.

           

            Blessed be Your name

            When the sun's shining down on me,

            When the world's 'all as it should be',

            Blessed be Your name.

            And blessed be Your name

            On the road marked with suffering,

            Though there's pain in the offering,

            Blessed be Your name.

My clergy colleague, Bob Brouwer, from Faith Reformed Church in Dyer, Indiana, lost his brother-in-law at a young age this week.  Bob posted this quote from commentator Michael Wilcock which captures a unique and difficult perspective.

"We may be lost, trapped, diseased, or overwhelmed. It may be our own fault or it may not. The Lord may seem to us kind or cruel. Good things happen and bad things happen. But ultimately God is good." Michael Wilcock, Commentary on Psalm 107

That’s a tough truth for me to embrace in the midst of difficulty, but it is the truth!

           

Blessed be the Lord!     ~ Rev