Be Thou a Blessing!

if I am to use you to bless others,

You must rid yourself of all pre-judgment (prejudice),

of all selfishness,

of all decision to withhold my blessing from those you do not like.

You must be willing to pass on whatever you receive

to whomever I will give it.

 

What if our mission from God were to be empty of self and to be ready, like a receiver station, a cell-phone tower, to pass on whatever He wants to send to others around us?  What if we were designed, like Abraham, to "be a blessing" to all peoples?

 

Every one of us wants to be in control of the blessings we bestow on others.  If the other does not meet our standards, our prejudices, then we can say, "Get away from me; I am 'holier than thou.' I have nothing to give you."  But that is the opposite of what Jesus did and what He still wants to do.  He said to the unwashed, to the outcast, to the societal reject, "Come! You are welcome!"  Maybe that's why He chose 12 outcasts: the small, the marginal, the unlearned, the sinner, the Samaritan woman -- all His apostles and disciples -- Mary Magdalene, Peter, Matthew, Zaccheus, John (the young teen), Simon, the Zealot.

 

In a very dark and chaotic world, in a world of destroy or be destroyed, in a world of greed and pride, God chose Abraham to go forth and be a blessing:  in you, all nations will bless themselves.  By their relationship to Abraham, men would call down upon themselves either a curse or a blessing.  I wonder if we could be "Abraham" ourselves:  here I stand, with my hands overflowing with the riches of God; I offer all to you if you will but take them.  I do not decide myself if you are "worthy;" I let you make the decision yourself to accept or to reject what I offer you.

 

Recently, a man moved into our neighborhood; he came from Los Angeles, where he had been selling "medical" marijana.  His one passion in life, it seemed, was to convert me to his way of thinking -- that the U.S. should legalize marijana.  He ranted and raved in every conversation about the topic, so much so that I really did not want to talk to him anymore.  Everytime I saw him, I thought "Pothead!"  When I worked in the yard, and saw him in his yard, I thought, "Please don't come over here; please don't talk to me." 

 

But soon I began to feel guilty about my thoughts.  Were these God's thoughts toward him?  I mentioned to the Bible Study group that I was feeling guilty about the way I thought about him.  "Pray about it," one of them said to me.  Thinking back on her advice, I realized how wise it was.  She did not tell me how to fix my thoughts; she did not reproach me for thinking them.  She was willing to allow God to speak to me Himself.  And did He ever!

 

The next time I was working in the yard and saw him smoking something? in his yard, I again thought, "I'll stay on my side of the street; you stay on yours; please don't come over here!"  But then, I relented and started to pray about my thoughts.  Immediately, I was struck by a thought that went through me like a bolt of lightening:  How can you be a blessing to this man?

 

Now that thought did not come from me; it was pretty clear what my own thoughts were.  That thought had to be coming from God, because it surely was not coming from me.  I thought about it for awhile, and then I had an idea.  The man -- when he was not raving about marijana -- used to admire one of my plants.  In fact, he loved it because it was orange, a color he loved.  So I dug up a piece of it, put it in a good pot, with good potting soil, and brought it across the street to him. 

 

Suddenly, our conversation entered a whole new level.  Instead of marijana, we were talking about other kinds of plants.  He wanted to know what was growing wild in his yard, and he was apologizing (sort of) for his foul languagae and his "ramped-up" (as he put it) personality.  HMMM.  Who could have guessed?

 

"Be thou a blessing!"  If that were all we had of Scripture, it would be enough, I think.