A dear friend sends me a quote about blessing from Johannes Pederson in Israel: Its life and Culture as quoted in Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. As I read the quote below, I remembered the Old Testament professor who said to our class, “Nothing matter more than the blessing of God. Everything was about securing the blessing.” We read this:
Blessing is not something external or ephemeral. Not a matter of having a good day, not an occasional run of luck. It is an “inner strength of the soul — and the happiness it creates. . . the vital power, without which no living being can exist. Happiness cannot be given to a person as something lying outside him. . . The action of God does not fall outside but at the very center of the soul; that which it gives us is not something external, but the energy, the power of creating it. . . The blessing thus comprises the power to live in its deepest and most comprehensive sense. Nothing which belongs to action and making life real can fill outside the blessing… Blessing is the vital power, without which no living being can exist.” It is this that fills and surrounds the person who is on the way of faith.
My friend asked, “What about this connects with you?” (I love having friends who ask me questions like this!) I love that God’s blessing means we are living life “in its deepest and most comprehensive sense.” God’s blessing means we enter into abundant life that’s not external to us but in the “very center of our soul.”