Reflections on blessings

“I will bless you and make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing…
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” [Genesis 12:2, 3]

Recently while onboard the Doulos, we got a colourful children’s bible for a pastor’s young daughter, Joy. When we gave Pastor Acy the bible, she was delighted, and so was the little girl. As I watched mother and daughter flipping through the colourful pages, I realized I was seeing a kingdom principle at work – the blessings of God flows through His people who are faithful and obedient. They will flow to others who are in contact with God’s people. It is almost like a spiritual law.

You see, at the age of just one and a half years old, little Joy has done nothing to deserve a present. Granted, she is so very adorable and likeable, but she hasn’t earned the bible she got.

Instead, she was blessed with a bible, because she was Pastor Acy's daughter, who is a trusted friend of ours. In faithfully serving the Timorese people, Pastor Acy has shown herself to be a humble worker of God and won our trust and admiration. Because of the godliness of the mother, the little daughter was blessed with a lovely gift. The blessing came from God, flowed through a life that was in intimate communion with Him (Pastor Acy), and finally rested on baby Joy.

And that’s the way blessings operate in the spiritual realm. That’s what God promised Abraham, and that’s the way it shall always be. He will bless us, and through us, bless others. We may not even be aware of it, and the beneficiaries may be totally undeserving – but God is committed to this divine mode of operation. (Even the spiritually undiscerning Laban understood God’s modus operandi. See Gen 30:27.)

So the best way to love your family and those around you, is to abide in intimate communion with God, and to truly seek Him first. In so doing, we become agents linking others to all the blessings and resources of Heaven. To the human mind, some acts of obedience to God may appear like one is letting down loved ones, like leaving elderly parents to pursue missions, or giving up a well-paying job for fulltime Christian service.

But if you consider how God’s blessings flow, then acts of faith and obedience will not be considered “painful” sacrifices but as sensible and rational ways of living life – perhaps the only way. Thus, the best ways to “provide” for your family is not hoarding or trying desperately to be in control, but to actually seek His will and to do it as a matter of priority. Because that is the tried and tested way for God’s blessings to flow to others, and flow they certainly will…