Day Thirty-Four

Day Thirty–Four // March 27 // Blessing

“Blessed are…” – Matthew, Chapter 5 –

With two little words (actually, only one in Matthew’s Greek or Jesus’ Aramaic), our Lord inaugurated His earthly ministry. With two little words, He unveiled the Kingdom’s truth. Blessedness… but not the blessedness we’d always imagined or hoped for. “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek and the hungry and the persecuted. Blessed are you when you are reviled and despised and rejected. Blessed are you when you have nothing; for, in Me, you still have everything.”

Honestly, it isn’t exactly what we want to hear. We want to hear blessings of prosperity. We want to hear blessings of health and wealth and ease. We want our

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homes to flow with milk and our jobs to drip with honey. But that isn’t the Kingdom our Savior came to install; for His is not a realm of upward mobility, but always of downward – down to the least, down to the lowly, down to the lonely and losing and lost. His Kingdom is not one of finding ourselves. It’s one found in losing ourselves (Luke 9:24). That’s what it is to be blessed.

And He didn’t just speak of this Kingdom. He showed it. He lived it. And He died for it. It is a radical thought, a radical and threatening departure from the ways that we’ve known and accepted. It’s a way of living (living for God and living for others) that challenges the very values and power-structures of our world. That’s why the world turned against Him – rejecting His blessings in lieu of the fool’s gold we still covet in our hearts.

Maybe it is, then, that we need to redefine and reframe how we hear and what we believe about the blessedness of the Lord. And maybe the first step is simply being grateful: grateful for all that we have… and even for all that we don’t. Maybe we need to learn to thank God for all that He’s given… and for all that He’s chosen to withhold – trusting that He knows what’s best. For it is in gratitude, in gracious living that our eyes are opened to see the glory of each sacred gift, the blessing of even the hard gifts we struggle to give thanks for.

Thank You for my hardships, Lord; for in them, I have known Your provision.

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Thank You for my weaknesses, Lord; for in them, I have felt Your strength up close.

Thank You for my doubts, Lord; for in them, I’ve heard Your understanding.

Thank You for my struggles, Lord; for in them, I’ve seen Your hand at work.

Thank You for our wounds, dearest Lord; for in them, You made – and are making us – more like Yourself: courageous and victorious and blessed.

WEEK SEVEN:

The Heart of Christ

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

– Matthew 6:21 –

During these somber days of Holy Week, as the body of our Lord is abused and rejected, may the echoes of God’s love move you and stir you; may they awaken you to the reality that Jesus endured all this for you... and may you find yourself forever changed by the love and victory that Calvary proclaims!