Blessed to Be a Blessing

In Psalm 67 King David cries out to God for a blessing. His prayer harkens back to God’s instructions to Moses to have Aaron and his sons intercede for the Israelites. Moses tells them to ask for God’s grace and peace for the nation of Israel. Likewise, King David is asking God to intercede, but with a distinctly different purpose. David’s plea is for God to be, “Gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us, so that His ways may be known on earth, His salvation among all nations.” David understood that God’s plan was for all the nations to know Him. But equally important, David understood that God uses His children to be involved in blessing those around them. Thousands of years later, this Biblical truth continues to be a guiding principle for all who follow Jesus Christ. If God is blessing you, He expects you to bless others so that God will be revealed to them.

Dallas Willard writes, “Spiritual formation, good or bad, is always profoundly social. You cannot keep it to yourself. Anyone who says, ‘It’s just between me and God has misunderstood God as well as ‘me.’ Relationships must be transformed if we are to be transformed.” Like Aaron and David, we need to embrace the responsibility we’ve been given as recipients of God’s grace. We are blessed to be a blessing to those who have yet to experience God’s amazing grace. This may sound easy enough, but unless we are paying attention to what’s going on around us, we can easily miss the opportunity to be a blessing to others. The unintentional life can cause us to drift away from what God’s desire is for our life.

Being attentive will always lead to an awareness of God’s presence in the circumstances and occurrences around us. This should prompt us to ask God, “What do you want me to know about this?” or “Is there something you want me to do?” Following the principle of Aaron’s prayer for his nation and David’s prayer for the nations around him, believers need to consciously focus on cultivating an awareness of what God is doing and respond accordingly. As God directs our thoughts and actions, our greatest challenge can be to simply obey. Knowledge and understanding without obedience is not transformational. To be a blessing to others demands a sacrificial love that often leads to action.

Take some time to consider the people God has placed in your life and ask yourself, “How can I be a blessing to…?” Then invite God into the conversation. Spend some time listening, discerning, and applying God-given wisdom as He gives direction. Like Aaron and David, prayerfully consider the circumstances unfolding around you to understand what God is orchestrating in your community and around the world. Take some time to discover how God wants to use you in His plan to transform lives, communities and nations. We are blessed to be a blessing, but only if we remain connected to the source and follow as He leads.