Words from WW Blog

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:3-4)

Jesus attracted a crowd. Granted, the gospel of Matthew tells us that He was traveling around the area known as Galilee, healing people who were sick, demon-possessed, or prone to seizures. The miraculous has a way of drawing the masses. He was also proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God, a message with a sense of renewal and revival.

The Sermon on the Mount has Him sitting on a hillside and telling the gathered crowd what they were in the midst of.

Blessings.

It was a curious message, considering it was a time of oppression, poverty, and unrest. Jesus was saying that they were blessed even as they were being persecuted, blessed even as they mourned, blessed even as they sought to be peacemakers amongst troubling times. The inference of the word “blessed” was that they were in the midst of blessing, not looking to some time in the future when they would be blessed. Israel’s belief was focused on a future hope, a messiah who had not yet come, a restoration of the golden days of King David.

That disconnect between what is and what will someday be has settled into a mindset for us today. We think of “being blessed” as a time we hope for, a point we are heading toward, not a time we are experiencing. It’s like we’re farsighted in our vision, instead of nearsighted about the moment we are looking at.

It speaks to our cynicism about the present and optimism about the future. Would it change things if we viewed today as a God-moment ripe with His presence and smothered with His blessings? Would our mindset have a transformation, if we saw the present as a time of blessing? Would it change our perspective on the conversations we engage in, the way we treat people, and our opportunities for showing love and concern?

Would we welcome a new personal designation as present-day optimists?

When I mow my lawn in the late evening as the sun makes it difficult to see the next strip of grass that needs to be cut, I look back to see the missed blades when I turn the mower around. Sometimes our paths are punctuated with opportunities that we fail to see until we turn around and investigate, those blessed moments in time when we miss what could have been.

Today you are in the midst of His blessings.

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This entry was posted on September 9, 2024 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.