Sunday, February 1, 2009

Some Thoughts on Blessing

Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman 

Blessed Be Your Name In the land that is plentiful Where Your streams of abundance flow Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name When I'm found in the desert place Though I walk through the wilderness Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise When the darkness closes in, Lord Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be Your name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name When the sun's shining down on me When the world's 'all as it should be' Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name On the road marked with suffering Though there's pain in the offering Blessed be Your name 

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise When the darkness closes in, Lord Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be Your name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be Your name Blessed be the name of the Lord Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away You give and take away My heart will choose to say Lord, blessed be Your name

I was listening to this song this morning while I was reading for my "missions and evangelism" class.  There was some cool stuff for a later blog, but I was taken by the song.  I have heard it a ton of times and have sang it more times than I can count.  As I was listening, it came to the part that says...

Blessed be Your name On the road marked with suffering Though there's pain in the offering Blessed be Your name 

You give and take away You give and take away My heart will choose to say Lord, blessed be Your name

Though there's pain in the offering, blessed by Your name.  Over the past few months, every time we do that song in a service, a lady in our congregation has to leave because her husband died last year.  She can't handle the "you give and take away" part of the song.  I sort of get what she is saying.  I have experienced some lose in my life, but I either don't internalize what is being said, or have moved on in my life.  It makes me think about the blessings in my life and I know that I have lived a blessed life.  Just recently I was thinking about our house burning down in 2005.  I see now that we were blessed tremendously from that experience.  We were all safe from the fire.  We didn't loose much of our personal keepsakes.  After the house was rebuilt, we almost have a completely new house out of it, and now as we are getting ready to sell it, we have a brand new house to put on the market and in 3 weeks we received an offer for more than we were asking.  Looking back, I can see we were blessed beyond what were first were expecting...

But what about lose that is permanent?  I don't guess I have experienced loss that takes me to the point that I can't listen to this song without breaking down.  I don't particularly want to experience that kind of loss, but can I, like Job in the bible, and like my friend here at the church, continue to bless and praise God through the loss.  That is my prayer now.  That I can and will continue to bless God's name even when things are not the way I want them...when I can't make since of why something happened...Blessed be the name of the Lord.  

Job 1:21 (MSG) 21 Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I'll return to the womb of the earth. God gives, God takes. God's name be ever blessed.  

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