Blessings don’t always look the way we expect. Jesus gives us something far deeper than we can imagine: he links blessings with suffering and pain. While these blessings may not be the worldly ones we are comfortable with, they give us the gifts of courage and perseverance.
I used to think God’s blessings were hard to come by.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada, and living all these decades in a wheelchair? There’ve been times I’ve wrestled with God’s definition of a blessing. I mean, I recall a long season in my life, years ago, when I was convinced that only physical healing constituted a true blessing from God. For me, God would bless me if, well, if he took away my pressure sores, or alleviated my pain, or got rid of my infections, or helped me sell one of my paintings. God was blessing me if I got a good grade in college, or if my wheelchair batteries stayed charged at the mall. “Whew! I made it to the parking lot; that was a blessing!” I would say to myself. Oh, my goodness. Back then, I took too many cues from the world as it concerned blessings, and I daresay that many believers do the same today – we so easily default to the lesser, more accessible things in our world that bless us. But the more we Christians bask in the blessings of earthy enjoyments, the more pickled our minds become, and we sit and we soak in worldly delights so much that we can hardly can remember what our actual souls really need. And so, we tend to view the loan approval, or the job promotion, or the home-team victory, or rain clouds parting over our picnic as proofs of God’s glorious favor sent to us from on high. We take them to mean that God is happy with us, that he is blessing us! Yet, if Jesus were counting your blessings, what exactly would make his list?
Well, Jesus goes much deeper than the physical-type of blessings of the world, or even like those in the Old Testament. Back then, God really did bless his people with physical favors: parting the rain clouds, abundant harvests. It was a big blessing when your enemies were annihilated, when God would open your wife’s womb, give plentiful rain, quivers full of children. However, when it comes to blessings in the New Testament, Jesus takes a different approach. He locates blessings closer to pain and discomfort.
Because in his most famous sermon, Jesus says, “Blessed are you,” and then he lists empty-handed spiritual poverty, hearts heavy with sorrow, a lowly forgiving spirit, eschewing sin, and struggling for unity in the church. And then, Jesus tops off his list of blessings with these words from Matthew 5, where he says, “And what happiness will be yours when people blame you and ill-treat you and say all kinds of slanderous things against you for my sake! Be glad then, yes, be tremendously glad — for your reward in Heaven [will be] magnificent.” With this in mind, I can say that I am the most blessed quadriplegic in the world now. And it has nothing to do with being healed of pressure sores, or having a job or nice house, or relatively good health, or a car pulling out of a handicap space just as I pull up to the restaurant. No, blessings do not hinge on books that I’ve written, or how far I’ve traveled, or having known Billy Graham on a first-name basis. No, Matthew 5 has taught me that Jesus connects his blessings with suffering.
Blessings of peace, courage, blessings of perseverance, endurance, and patience. God blesses us when he gives us the grace to be “sorrowful yet always rejoicing, [to have nothing], [and] yet [possess] everything; being poor, and yet making many rich.” In fact, right there you’ve a pretty good description of the life of Jesus Christ. He paved the way to courage and patience and endurance. The Man of immense sorrow is acquainted with your grief, and he says in James 1, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial for when he has stood the test, [he’ll] receive the crown of life.” And that is quite the blessing.
© Joni and Friends