Bless Your/Their Heart…

We live in a part of the country where the words ‘bless your heart’ are often an insult.  The person may be saying those words to tell you that you are naïve, unintelligent or gullible.  The words don’t always communicate that, but the tone often does.

Thankfully God has a different message when He pronounces blessings on us, but even then, often ‘blessings’ are offered in a generic way.

·      Blessings crown the head of the righteous…Prov 10:6a

·      The will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior…Psalm 24:5

When you read verses like that or hear someone say that they have received many blessings, what do you think of?  Does it usually refer to receiving something beneficial or needed?  Maybe it refers to hearing good news.

Would you feel more blessed if you:

·      Received something you wanted or if you gave someone something they needed?

·      Had people lavish praise on you or you lavished praise on someone else?

·      Were served by someone or you had the chance to serve someone else?

·      Received unexpected money or provided unexpected money to someone else?

Perhaps both are true in each of those examples.  Blessing are not ‘either/or’, they are ‘both/and’. 

God puts them together in Genesis 12 which tells us that Abraham was blessed to be a blessing.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  Genesis 12:2

If we are blessed to be a blessing, does it also mean that every time we receive something we consider a blessing that we should be open to how God would want us to use that blessing in some way to bless someone else?