We crave, long for, our Lord’s approval. In the Old Testament, brothers fought over getting their father’s blessing. We grapple with God’s messengers, not wanting to let go until we are blessed.

I would love for someone to really explain, convincingly, why we so casually utter the expression, “I’ll be damned.” Do we really harbor that kind of fatalistic death-wish? If more of God’s beloved children (which we all are) really knew how useless and self-defeating those words are, we might think twice. How bizarre that we hear those words spoken as a response to something supposedly wondrous, like some kind of revelation. We think, “I never knew that”, so we blurt out, “well, I’ll be damned.” How odd! It’s another one of life’s crazy imponderables.

Perhaps to turn a phrase,…why not start saying, “well, I’ll be blessed”! Jesus does promise this in his beautiful Sermon on the Mount. The blessing is offered freely, almost as the antithesis of the angst-ridden examples in the Old Testament. It is not some hard-fought, struggled over quest. It is definitely a big cut above the proverbial “gesundheit”. Would you agree that our divisive atmosphere could use more blessings than damnings? Even if we are trying to be self-effacing?  Read Genesis 32:22-32, and remember: God loves you unconditionally!

Pastor Art