Live in Blessing

Can God bless troubled us as we attempt to navigate the terrain of a damaged world?

Yes, He wants to, He can, and if we let Him, He will.

Some time ago, I visited the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where I saw John-François Millete’s painting Man with a Hoe. This painting depicts a large, dirty, brutish man bent over a hoe attempting to turn rocky soil into a productive field. He is clearly exhausted. Millet was a religious fatalist who believed that people were tragically condemned to bear a heavy burden. As I looked at that painting, my mind flashed back to Michelangelo’s painting, The Creation of Adam, and I thought, Is this what Adam looked like after the fall? And my heart broke. I believed that God could bless the Adam of Eden, but could He bless the Adam who was broken by the Fall?

The first human beings were given a choice as to whether they would live in God’s full blessing or go their own way. They chose their own way instead of living in God's full blessing. The plague of sin was introduced to the human race, and the whole world fell sick. Adam went from the wonder of meeting God every day and working and caring for the Garden of Eden to being a profusely sweating, exhausted man. But before humanity fell sick, God had prepared the cure. He told Adam and Eve that a man would come from the woman who would reverse the curse and restore the blessing. And Jesus came and did what needed to be done to redeem humanity and to reconcile us to God and His blessing. 

If we believe in Jesus and are in relationship with Him, we can live and grow in that blessing despite the brokenness in us and around us. 

To live in the blessing God wanted for us does not mean that life is perfect. We are still broken people in a broken world. The more we know Jesus and grow to be like Him, the more we live like the Adam who was blessed, and the less we live like the Adam who was cursed. 

Because of Jesus, the wounded God-image in us is being healed, the world around us looks more like Eden. Move forward in history, take the examples of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and many others who were blessed by God. What do you think God wants to do to you? You may feel broken, burdened, even exhausted, but God wants to bless you.

Adapted from The Lord Bless You (Chosen) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.