In a world too often filled with hurt and hardship, it's sometimes easy to forget the truth that God loves us and longs to bless our lives. In fact, it's far too easy to overlook the ways that our lives are blessed and instead focus on the ways that life is unfair. And yet, God still does reach out to men and women each and every day to offer them big and small blessings, and more often than not, God uses other men and women to be the messangers of those blessings!
Our scripture lesson this week (1 Samuel 1:4-20) is all about an unexpected blessing. The story begins with a woman (Hannah) who was unable to have children. Year after year, she would go with her husband to the temple and pray that God would give her a son, and year after year she would be disappointed. This particular year, she was praying at the temple, when the high priest (Eli) thought she was drunk and told her to be on her way. Hannah explained her predicament to the priest and he quickly proclaimed that God would grant her petition. Whether he really believed her story, or he just wanted her to leave the temple wasn't important to her, for he had declared that God would grant her request. Hannah was blessed that day, in an unexpected way, and she went home and soon conceived a son!
Such stories are by no means contained only to the Bible. I can remember a time not too long ago where my family was struggling to get by financially. We had just had our first child, winter was rapidly approaching, and we couldn't afford to heat our small apartment. We were already basically living in one bedroom, when our car began making an odd noise. Taking our car to the shop we found out that some costly repairs were needed and that the price would essentially take all of our savings. It was in the midst of this difficult situation that my wife and I were unexpectedly blessed. We received a check in the mail with a simple note attached proclaiming that we were already blessed people, but that a little money never hurts! We never did find out who sent us that blessing, but know that it was God who ultimately sent it our way.
In case you think that this message is all about getting blessings, and God being some sort of Giant Santa Claus in the sky, the story from 1 Samuel includes two main characters, Hannah who was blessed, and Eli who delivered the blessing. As I said above, God not only wants to bless you, but God wants you to be a blessing to others as well!
Recently I was meeting with a colleague who had been meeting with several clergy that day and inquiring about their lives and ministries. Toward the end of our meeting she asked me if I had any questions for her. I simply asked how her family was. At this the woman stopped, smiled, and proclaimed that no one had asked her that. She proceeded to tell me that she had recently found out that she was going to be a grandmother for the first time! She couldn't be more excited to tell someone her big news and was truly blessed by my simple question! Truly you can say that as far as I was concerned it was an unintentional blessing...a wonderful consequence of a willingness to show concern for another person.
Both unexpected blessings, and unintentional blessings simply require us (as recipients and messangers) to be open to God. We merely need to keep our eyes open for the big and small blessings given to us each and every day, as well as the big and small opportunities to bless others. There are few joys in this world greater than receiving and unexpected blessing, and I am convinced that one of those few is to be the bearer of an unintentional blessing for another! My prayer for you today is that you look for and find the many blessings God has in store for you, and that you're able to experience the greater joy of delivering a divine blessing to another.
Grace & Peace,
Pastor John
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