Speaking Blessings

Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you. If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even it if is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it. (Emmet Fox)

After accepting our present circumstances, no matter what they may be, we must learn to bless them. The tongue has the power of life and death. Prov 18:21 NIV

Right. Bless even misery?

Through your gritted teeth if necessary. Usually we don’t fully know or understand why something has happened and we won’t until there’s enough distance to take a backward glance. And then there are some things that will only make sense, one day, when God reveals them to us in Heaven. 

I’m learning that blessing whatever bothers us is the spiritual surrender that can change even troublesome situations for the better. Blessing the circumstances in our lives also teaches us to trust. Trust. Trust. If you’re sick and tired of learning life’s lessons through pain and struggle, blessing your challenges will show you there is a better way.

Then, also start to count your blessings. Start today. Make a spiritual inventory of all your blessings. See if you can get to one hundred. So much goodness happens to us, but in the rush and the struggle of daily living we fail to notice or acknowledge it. Writing it down focuses our attention on the abundance we’ve already experienced and that which is currently within our very own hands, and makes it real. Real. Real.

Kairos (the Greek word for ‘right happening’), is when life affords you a time where you feel as if you are exactly where you are meant to be, doing exactly what you are meant to be doing.

Once in a while, such a moment coincides with one of your loved ones having that very same experience, at the very same time. So it was, one recent late Friday afternoon, that Claude played a song called The Blessing, performed by The King’s Harpists, to start our very first Local House of Prayer gathering held in the lounge of this darling cottage in which we live. 

At the very first sound of the harps, I felt an inner hush, then a stir of Spirit. The cottage grew silent, reverent. I didn’t expect to cry, and yet, when the first notes of the harps rang out and the singing of the Aaronic blessing started, sudden tears rolled down my cheeks. By the time they reached the chorus, I was weeping. There is something about hearing hundreds of harps and anointed musicians from each and every nation, all joined together in exquisite harmony, that can prompt an already full heart to, well, overflow.

Opening my eyes momentarily to reach for a tissue, I was privileged to catch a glimpse of Claude’s wholehearted worship — I understood. In a world that too often seems bleak and overburdened, here was a powerful reminder of redemption, hope, and light, a Kairos of revelling in this unexpected treasured moment of blessing.

Being blessed with the fullness of God’s Shalom is no small thing as any devout Jew will tell you. God‘s shalom is perfect. It means peace on the inside and peace on the outside — peace in your mind and health in your body (see Isa 26:3). This is the wholeness God wants to give you and me! Now, that’s truly a reason to rejoice! Rejoice. Rejoice.

As their voices soared I heard my own singing voice join theirs. Claude joined in too. Harmonies wove shimmering tapestries of sound. Slowly, sumptuously, the song gathered in strength and power until the climatic exaltation that He is with us and that he is for us, and culminating with the Amen of agreement. Amen, Amen. To top it all, while singing, God blessed me with an unexpected vision of Africa. Nkosi sikele, iAfrika! (God bless Africa!)

How glad I was in that moment — for Africa, for South Africa, for Claude, for me, for us, and most of all, for passions discovered, hope reclaimed, and destiny unfolding.

So, each and every Friday, in our Local House of Prayer, we shall take a moment to draw aside and in agreement say to this cottage, this community, this city, this country, this continent – “We bless you, in Jesus’s name”!

The LORD bless you, and keep you [protect you, sustain you, and guard you]
The LORD make His face shine upon you [with favor]
And be gracious to you [surrounding you with lovingkindness]
The LORD lift up His countenance (face) upon you [with divine approval]
And give you peace [a tranquil heart and life] Numbers 6: 24 -26 AMP

Dear God

Thank you that you bless us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.

Amen

What has been your experience of speaking blessings, having them spoken over you, or of being blessed?