Читать книгу There Will Be Showers of Blessing - D. J. Speckner - Страница 10

“We deserve it!” This statement was a declaration made by a local radio announcer as a way of celebrating good news. The city in which he lived had been threatened by a severe weather. The weather forecast placed the city in the direct path of a hurricane. However, this particular hurricane narrowly missed the announcer’s hometown. Instead, the storm had moved on to devastate another part of the country. The day after the hurricane threat had passed; the announcer’s city was enjoying a beautiful day, with cool temperatures and clear, blue skies. The radio station’s weather meteorologist was predicting calm weather for the rest of the day, and this forecast led the announcer to proudly exclaim, “We deserve it!”

“Why?” was a question that immediately comes to mind. “Why did they deserve it?” Another way to put it would be to ask, “What had the radio announcer or his city done in order to deserve having a hurricane miss them, and then on the next day, what did they do to deserve having a beautiful day?” A second question also needs to be asked, “What did the other people in another part of the country do to deserve being ravaged by that same hurricane?” The reason this second question needs to be asked is because of what that particular hurricane had done to other people. Did the people of the second city think, “We deserve it? That is why we are living through the aftermath of having a hurricane destroy our homes, businesses and city today.”

This is the point that is being made; hurricanes do not hit or miss a particular place on the basis of what the people are doing. People do not deserve hurricane hits or misses. And likewise, God’s blessings are not given to us because we did anything to deserve them. If you deserve something, then it is because you have earned it, or because you are being paid for something you have done. Romans 6:23 is a great reminder of what we have done and what we deserve. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We deserve death and devastation due to our sin, but God offers us the gift, a blessing if you will, of eternal life.

Does anyone deserve good weather? Or, does anyone deserve bad weather? What can you possibly do to keep a hurricane from striking your community? You can prepare yourself for any inclement weather that may strike, but how do you keep it from striking?

People might answer, “We prayed and asked God that the hurricane might pass us. And, it did!” However, one would assume that the people who were struck by the hurricane were also praying that it would miss them. It seems unlikely they would ask God to strike themselves down with a hurricane that other places might be spared. Does this mean one group of people prayed better prayers than the other; and thus, deserve to be missed? Is this why they deserved it? The problem is that often people do not understand what a blessing actually is. A hurricane is an act of nature. An act of nature which God allowed to occur according to the laws of nature which he himself put in place when he created the world. But, a hurricane is an act of nature nonetheless. As an act of nature, a hurricane is a storm of life, and the blessing lies not in the fact that the storm misses or hits a person. The blessing is what God does to help us survive and overcome the storms that impact our lives.

If you receive a blessing because you worked for it and thus deserve it, then it is not a blessing at all but a payment or reward. A blessing is not a deserved payment. But too often, when good things happen to us, we view them as things we deserve, as if we have some claim over them because of things we have done. And not surprisingly, we look at the bad things that happen to us in life as curses. We believe that we most certainly do not deserve any of these curses in our lives no matter what evil things we might have committed.

In order to understand the showers of blessing found in the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, we first need to appreciate what a blessing is. We need to understand the nature of the blessing.

A Description of a Blessing

It is important that we know what a blessing is in a general sense, and we need to know how God wants to bless us in specific ways. By having this knowledge, we would then understand why we would want to be blessed by God.

A good way to understand the nature of a blessing is to come to it with a child-like faith. One day during a Sunday school class, I was teaching the small children about the meaning of the blessings that come from God. I asked these children what a blessing was? They described a blessing as “something that God gives you.” They further defined the motive of God’s willingness to bless us as being the fact that God loves us. Both of these answers showed their child-like understanding of God the Father and his blessings; instead of childishly believing we deserve God’s blessings as so many adults like to think.

Over and over again throughout the Bible, God makes the promise to bless his people. The promise found in Ezekiel 34:26, is spoken by the Lord, “I will bless them (his people) and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.” We need to understand what a blessing is in order to decide if we would even want one. A blessing could be described as a gift, whether spiritual or material, which God bestows upon his people.

In this passage from Ezekiel, the English words “bless” and “blessing” come from the Hebrew word “barak.” The root meaning of this Hebrew word is “to kneel”, and can be used as a greeting, a blessing or an exhortation of praise. The idea of “kneeling” for a blessing can give us a rich illustration as to what a blessing is. As a Christian kneels before God, he can ask for a blessing, or he can bless God through praise. In either case, that Christian is humbling himself before God by lowering himself through the act of kneeling.

When God blesses a person, it is not that he humbles himself before the person. Instead, God lowers himself from his throne of grace and the realms of heaven, and enters the earthly lives of his people in order to help them.

Usually in the Old Testament, blessing is used in the passive voice meaning “to be blessed” when it is used of people who do not have the power to take care of themselves. This concept of blessing is also shown to us in the New Testament through the writings of Paul. The apostle wrote the following about Jesus Christ,

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. (Philippians 2:6–9)

In this passage, Paul tells us that God entered our human world though Jesus Christ. Jesus humbled himself and was obedient to the will of God. This obedience ultimately resulted in his crucifixion. God then exalted Jesus through his resurrection. By giving Jesus to the world, God has blessed us. However, there is no mention of what we might have done in order to have deserved God’s blessing. We do not deserve Jesus, and there is nothing we can do in order to earn his grace.

In the New Testament, the English word “blessing” comes from the Greek word “markarios.” This word can mean “to be blessed and fortunate”; and as a result, the person being bless also experiences happiness. The special characteristic of a blessing in the New Testament is the religious joy that people experience from being certain of salvation and thus of citizenship in the kingdom of God. As with the Old Testament, most New Testament uses of blessing are also in the passive voice, “to be blessed.” The Beatitudes found in the Gospels of Matthew 5:3–12 and Luke 6:20–23 are understood to be new blessings accompanying the establishment of the new covenant with God through Jesus Christ.

Overall, the basic understanding of a blessing is that of an undeserved gift. As a person receives the blessing of an undeserved gift, which he cannot earn on his own, he was also blessed with happiness and joy of a close relationship with the God who has blessed him.

Relationships and Blessings

The Bible describes various types of relationships which involve blessings. Different Bible stories show us that certain individuals can be the ones who do the blessing, and different people can be the recipients of these blessings. According to the Bible, God blesses people, and people could bless God and other people. The pronouncement of blessings could even be made for the sake of animals and physical objects.

God Blesses People

Accounts of God blessing his people are found in many Bible passages. One specific example of God blessing an individual is when God blessed Abram,

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 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. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:1–3)

In this passage God offered Abram a new covenant and a new relationship with him. A part of that covenant is that God promised Abram that he would bless him.

Also found within this covenant is the promise that God would bless other people through Abram. The blessing of God did not stop with one person, but was extended to others. This is often true of any blessing from God. When God blesses one person, other people in the person’s life are affected by the blessing. For example, if a man and wife are blessed with the birth of a child, then everyone who knows this family will be affected by the joy of the couple, as they regale us with their stories of the birth and growth of the baby, and as they overwhelm us with a multitude of baby pictures. The blessings given to one person or family can become in turn a blessing to those who are around them.

The same thing should be true of a person who by believing in Jesus becomes a Christian. Paul described such a person as becoming a new creature, that he has miraculously become a new person. Jesus described the new disciple has having been “born again.” This person has been blessed with eternal and abundant life, and he should want to share the joy of this blessing by telling everyone what God has done for him. His new family, the church, is also blessed by seeing the miracle of salvation in his life. The church should also rejoice and tell others how God continues to work in the lives of people and in the church itself.

It has always been God’s intention to bless mankind. Using the illustration of a Shepherd and sheep found in the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord made it clear how he intended to bless his people. In the historical setting of that chapter, God asserted that the Israelite people had been misguided and mistreated by their spiritual leaders. In order to correct the situation, and in order to bless them, God promised to shepherd his people himself.

Because Jesus also called himself the good Shepherd, he will do all things which an earthly shepherd should have done but did not do or had left undone. The reason Jesus blesses his people is because he loves them in the same way that a Good Shepherd should love his sheep. The Shepherd blesses his sheep because he loves them, and not because the sheep have done something to deserve the Shepherd’s love or blessings.

People Can Bless God

We need to realize that people can bless God. The Bible has passages in which it describes and encourages people to bless God through praise and thanksgiving. The Bible contains some verses that can be used by a person in his worship of God and in his relationship with God. In Psalm 68:18, a psalmist wrote a blessing that a person can use by proclaiming, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” It is important to keep in mind that when a person uses this verse as a blessing in worship that the person truly believes that God needs to be praise because of his daily care. These words should not be simply spoken because they are found in the Bible. Instead, God’s people should use Bible passage like this because they believe these words describe their God and their relationship with him. Faith should produce our words. Our love for God should result in our praise of him.

By definition, a blessing is an undeserved gift. But how is that the case with people blessing God? How can God not deserve our blessing? In a sense, he does deserve our praise and thanksgiving because of all that he has done for us: however, God does not demand or require us to bless him. Our blessing is not a debt we are paying back to God because he first blessed us. Instead, our blessing is a heart-felt expression of love for the one who first loved us and who taught us what love is all about. Jesus shows us that if you love someone then you will bless them as in the next example of blessings.

People Can Bless Other People

An important part of the human experience is when people bless other people. The Bible has several stories where a person blessed someone else. These blessings help to show the close relationship people had with one another because they loved each other. They proved their love through the blessings they presented to one another.

One story of a person blessing other people has an interesting twist, and this story is found in the Forty-eighth chapter of Genesis. Joseph had brought his two young sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to their grandfather Jacob in order that Jacob might pronounce a personal blessing for each of these boys. The Hebrew people believed that whatever blessing a father or grandfather spoke toward his children or grandchildren would then come true in that person’s life. In front of Joseph, Jacob blessed his two grandsons.

However, Jacob did something unexpected in this story. Normally the older son or grandson was given a greater blessing from his father or grandfather than any blessing his younger brothers might receive. The younger siblings would receive less favorable blessings. Jacob did not do this for Manasseh and Ephraim; instead, Jacob switched the blessings and gave the greater blessing to Ephraim, the younger brother, rather than giving it to the older brother Manasseh. Jacob indicated this switching of blessings by crossing his hands, and putting his right hand on Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh. This switching of blessing displeased Joseph, and he tried to correct Jacob. However, Jacob refused to follow Joseph’s guidance, and basically told him, “I know, my son, I know what I am doing. Manasseh too will become a great people. Nevertheless, his younger brother will become greater than he.” As the history of the nation of Israel unfolds in the Old Testament, we find that the tribe of Ephraim did rise to prominence over the tribe of Manasseh and other Israelite tribes as well. The name Ephraim was often used to refer to the northern kingdom of Israel during the period of the divided monarchy. From this history of the tribe of Ephraim we come to realize the great importance biblical people put in blessings; especially when it came to family relationships and future events. And, we learn how these blessings were fulfilled.

Jacob may have blessed Ephraim for different reasons. He could have done this because he had struggled with his older brother Esau over the family’s birthright and blessing. Jacob had also favored the younger sister Rachel over the older sister Leah as his two wives. Therefore, he may have advanced the younger Ephraim over his older brother Manasseh because of these earlier relationships in his life. It could also have been that Jacob believed it was God’s will for him to bless the younger grandson over the elder grandson.

In any case, we should realize that our ability to bless or to curse other people can have a great impact in their lives, and we should not take the blessing of other people lightly. The New Testament encourages us to bless the people around us. The Apostle Peter wrote, “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:9) Every Christian needs to understand that God wants him to bless other people. It is the Christian’s duty and his destiny. The Christian blesses others by first doing the opposite of what is expected, and by doing the opposite of what is deserved. Instead of retaliating or getting even, the Christian answers with blessings instead of curses, and with goodness instead of evil. Peter wrote that if the Christian would bless other people, then he will inherit blessings from God. In a very real sense, God will treat the Christian in the same manner that the Christian treats other people; even evil people.

As an underserved gift, we need to understand that a blessing is often initiated by the Lord, although it may be proclaimed through other people. Balaam was another example of a person God used to bless others. In the book of Numbers, chapters Twenty-two through Twenty-four, the prophet Balaam was recruited by the Moabite king Balak so that Balaam would curse the nation of Israel. Balaam warned Barak that he could only speak the words which the Lord put into his mouth. Balaam ended up pronouncing three blessings on Israel rather than cursing them; much to Balak’s chagrin.

In Ezekiel 34 there is an implied warning. We need to bless the people around us. The blessings which God intended for his people to receive were supposed to come through the priests, or shepherds, but they chose to bless their own lives to the detriment of the people they were supposed to be leading. People, even as religious leaders, do not always do what God wants them to do.

Therefore God was going to take matters into his own hands as he took on the responsibility of caring for the people himself. God then promised to shower them with blessings.

Other Things Can be Blessed

From the Old Testament, we learn that things other than people could also be blessed. Moses told the people of Israel the Lord would bless them in many ways, which included childbirth among their wives. Moses also promised the people that the Lord would bless their possessions they owned including their land, crops and livestock. Their possessions represented the Lord’s blessings of provision and prosperity. (See Deuteronomy 28:1–8.)

God’s Purpose in Blessing

God has a purpose for blessing people. The life of Job is a good example in showing us not only how God blesses a person, but also God’s purpose behind the blessing. The Bible describes Job as a man of great prosperity both in possessions and with his family. At the beginning of the story of this man, we are told that Job had seven sons and three daughters. He owned thousands of sheep and camels, and hundreds of oxen and donkeys, and also had a large number of servants. More importantly, Job was described as a man who was faithful to God, and his character was that of a man who was blameless and upright. Job feared God and shunned evil. When his children held feasts in their homes, Job purified them and made burnt sacrifices for them. The Bible tells us that “this was Job’s regular custom.” Apparently, Job was trying to bless his family though religious rituals.

And yet, through a series of catastrophes, Job lost all of his possessions, wealth, health and family. Job lost everything, except for his wife, and she advised Job to “curse God and die.” We are told that all these disasters happened to Job because they were tests of his faith in God.

When Job’s faith did not break, and as he continued to prove that he trusted God, the Bible tells us how God blessed him yet again. At the end of the story of Job we learn that, “the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.” God restored Job’s wealth by giving him twice as much livestock as he had in the beginning of the story. God also gave Job a new family which included seven new sons and three new daughters. The story of Job ends with the words, “And so he died, old and full of years.” This ending shows the reader that Job remained faithful, and God has the power and authority to bless his people.

It is important for us to keep in mind that God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and that as God promised to “never leave or forsake” us (Hebrews 13:5). Therefore, because God is always the same, we have this one constant truth in life, God always keeps his promises. His promises are still in effect today. The God who is found in the book of Job is also the same God who is found in Ezekiel, and he is still God today. As God tested Job’s faith and also blessed again him by restoring his health, and by providing Job with more possessions, and by giving him a new family, this same God who made promises to the people in Ezekiel always kept his promises. And since God fulfilled his word to his people and blessed them in the Bible, we can be certain God will keep his promises which he has made to his people who are living today.

The reason that God blesses us is because he loves us and he wants to take care of us. We need to understand this truth, and place our faith in God by trusting him to keep his promises to us.

God is actively involved in the lives of his people. This fact becomes obvious when one reads the Bible. Throughout the Bible, and especially in the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, God tells his people how he wants to help them in life. In verse nine of that chapter, God calls himself “the Lord” when he says, “therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.” God then names himself the Sovereign Lord nine times in this chapter of the Bible. God says in verse two of Ezekiel 34, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?” These selfish shepherds should have known better. They should have taken care of the people. They should have blessed them, and not because the people deserved it, but because these human shepherds should have loved them. But since these shepherds would not do what any good shepherd needed to do, the Lord was going to take over the flock. The Lord promised to bless the people by becoming their Good Shepherd.

As the Sovereign Lord, God was telling Ezekiel, the Hebrew people, and today’s Bible reader, that he is in total control, and that he is going to act on their behalf by showering them with blessings.

Throughout the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, the Lord uses the illustration of shepherds and their sheep to represent God and his relationship with his people. The Lord accused the religious leaders of Israel of being self-seeking and negligent. God told them that he is going to take over as the Shepherd of his flock. “As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.” (Ezekiel 34:12)

To be honest, we need to ask ourselves, “What kind of a shepherd would we want to look after us?” We could also ask ourselves some other questions: such as, “would we want a shepherd who is only looking out for himself?” Or, “would we want the Shepherd who looks after us do so only because he loves us?” And finally, “which kind of shepherd do we truly deserve; that is, if we have done anything deserving of such a reward?”

In reference to the blessings God is going to bestow upon his people, the Lord continually uses the phrase “I will” throughout the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel. By using this phrase “I will” twenty-seven times, God wanted the people to know that his blessings are the proof that God was actively involved in their lives. By saying, “I will,” God is proclaiming the identifiable actions and blessings he is going to perform. In this book that follows, we will discuss four specific blessings found in Ezekiel 34. As we discuss these blessings, we need to understand what each blessing is, and also learn how we might be able to share each of these same blessings with others. By knowing what God is promising to his people through these four blessings, we can better answer the question, “What kind of a shepherd would we want to look after us?” We can also decide if we want to believe that God can bless us in these ways, and we can choose to trust him to be our Shepherd and follow him.

As he has identified himself as the speaker, God also identifies the recipients of his blessings. They are his people. One of the specific references made to them is found at the end of Ezekiel 34. The chapter concludes, “Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD. You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD.” (Ezekiel 34:30–31) God also refers to his people as “my flock,” or “my sheep” several times in this chapter. By naming himself as the Shepherd, and by calling his people his flock and sheep, God is establishing the type of relationship he wants with his people. This relationship becomes the basis by which God is determined to bless his people.

Why Does God Bless?

Why does God bless people? This question can be answered in three parts. First, God chooses who he will bless. It is not because we deserve it, but it is because God chooses to use his power and authority to bring his people gifts into their lives. God acts in the lives of people because he chooses to act in their lives. It is God’s choice to bless, and not our choice to deserve his blessings.

Second, God blesses because it is his character to do so based upon his love. God’s love is the reason why the people of God receive showers of blessing. We certainly do not deserve them anymore that we deserve his love. God gives his blessings to us because God loves us and wants to bless us. A Christian scholar named Peter Craigie wrote, “The entire pastoral metaphor presupposes God’s care and love. No shepherd can function without participating in that love; no sheep can live without experiencing that love.” Because God first loved us, God’s people need to learn to love others and share God’s blessings with them.

God wants us to love him and the people around us, and we show our love by our willingness to share God’s blessings with the people we meet in life. In the Thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, God looked at the way the leaders of Israel were abusing the people they were supposed to be taking care of, and to paraphrase what God said, “That’s enough! If you will not take care of them, then I will!” God showed himself to be compassionate toward the people.

This compassion is also shown to people during the life of Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew tells us,

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:35–38)

Upon seeing the need of the people, Jesus wanted his disciples to pray that God would send his blessing. Jesus was specific about what that prayer request and blessing should be. Jesus wanted his disciples to pray to God to send out workers because the people needed immediate help. Jesus could see their need through his eyes of compassion.

Christians today need to say the same prayer and ask the Lord to send workers. The people are here right now all among Christians. These people need help right now. It is up to Christians to both ask God to bless these people by answering their need for compassion, and the Christian also must get to work and help provide for their physical needs through acts of love.

The way Jesus intended it to be accomplished was for Christians to answer the call and fulfill the need, and thus to become the blessing to the world. We should do this because of our compassion and love for the people. When we become the blessing, then we discover that we in return are also ones being blessed because we become a part of God’s plan to love and help people. Our blessing is we are given a purpose in life to work of God and to bless other people.

This brings us to the third point. God blesses because he wants us to take on his character of love, and to be a blessing to other people. In other words, a blessing is not supposed to stop with the person being blessed. There needs to be a progression of blessing. The showers are not supposed to stop. The person who blessed is to be an extension of the blessing he has receive by blessing other people in the same way. It was God’s intention for the nation of Israel to be a source of blessing to the nations that surrounded them. Their leaders, their shepherds, were negligent in both providing for the people and in guiding the people by example. The result was that the flow of blessing came to an end because their love for each other dried up. In our modern day, it now becomes the ministry of the Christian to take up the love of Christ and to become that blessing to the world around him. Christians must not allow the thought of “Do these people deserve our blessings?” to even enter our minds. We must bless others or risk the condemnation of the worthless shepherds which the leaders of God’s people had during Ezekiel’s time.

Conclusion

Too often, people in America ask, “What’s in it for me?” Unfortunately, this attitude extends into the Christian community. Many people seem to have the attitude that they will only go to church to see what they can get out of it. The Christian should hold a different attitude. Instead of, “What’s in it for me?” our response should be, “What’s in it for others?” And more specifically, we should ask, “How can I bless others?” Our attitude about church should be not what can I get out of it, but what can I put into it. The truth is you can only get out of church what you put into it in the first place.

Christians should think “because I have been blessed, I now want to take it a step farther, and be a blessing to others.” In this way, the showers of blessing will not only be poured out on Christians, but the blessings will also flow through us to other people as well.

In Ezekiel, God says, “I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing.” God will make his people a blessing so that they can bless other people around them. In this way a Christian will become a living example of God’s blessing and will become more Christ-like in the process. In other words, each Christian will also become a shepherd.

You bless other people’s lives by sharing the same blessing which you have received from God. If he blesses you with love, then you need to bless others by loving them. If he has blessed you by giving to you, then you need to share with others through giving. If God shares the good news of his salvation through Jesus Christ, then you need to share this message of salvation with others. In other words, share in the same way that you have been blessed.

It is the opposite of what we have learned from the world. Instead of taking an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, we need to choose to love, and to give, and to become a blessing. You share your blessing with others, not because they deserve it, but because you are taking on the character of God by loving them and by blessing them through sharing. A Christian hymn which describes this idea of continued blessing is “Make Me a Blessing.” This hymn was written by Ira Wilson and George Schuler. The following words are from this hymn:

Out of the highways and by-ways of life,

Many are weary and sad;

Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife,

Making the sorrowing glad.

Make me a blessing, Make me a blessing.

Out of my life, may Jesus shine;

Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray,

Make me a blessing to someone today.

Christians need to allow God to make them blessings in the lives of other people, and we need to be determined to be a blessing today, and every day. Keep in mind that the priests in Ezekiel were not blessing the people. They were trying to bless themselves. Many people are familiar with an older theatrical play and movie called “Fiddler on the Roof.” The movie takes place in a quaint Jewish village which is located in rural Russia during the late 1800s. One of the characters in the story is the village’s beloved Rabbi. He is the little community’s spiritual leader and advisor. In a sense, he is their shepherd. On one occasion this Rabbi was asked by his students, “Is there a blessing for the czar?” The czar, Russia’s reigning monarch, could be oppressive in the way that he chose to govern his countrymen. The Rabbi answered his students in the following way, “A blessing for the czar? Of course there is a blessing for the czar.” Next the Rabbi pronounced this blessing, “Lord, keep the czar . . .” The Rabbi paused and then continued, “. . . as far away from us as possible.” The students laughed. But is that a blessing, or a prayer request for them to be blessed rather than for the sake of the czar?

The nature of a blessing is to help people, and not to hurt them or to harm them or to drive them away.

The Hope of the Blessing

An old saying is, “Hope springs eternal.” This is one of the great blessings we have from God—Hope! Our hope is that God “will” bless us. A biblical understanding of hope is the belief of a future certainty, that something good will absolutely happen. For the person who believes in God’s love, hope is not a possibility or a probability. Hope is a reality! Hope may not have yet been realized or received, but it definitely will happen. Because of this assurance, we can always have hope in life. Even if we lose loved ones to some horrifying disaster as Job did; even if our lives seem to be crumbling all around us; even if our spouse walks out on us or our sons turn to drugs, or our daughters turn to prostitution, by faith in God’s blessing, we can still have hope in God.