The Blessing

You may have noticed I've started ending ("started ending?" Oxymoron, Josh Lyle!) my blogs with a blessing. For the last year or so I've noticed God telling me that blessing people is an important thing for me to do. But I don't often have a good opportunity to offer them, except on SonDay's at our corps.

I've actually written out a few for certain people- when I know I am going to be able pray it over them in person. I believe I may even have blogged one or two after I gave them to the person awhile back.

Rob Bell, an awesome teacher I have come to listen to a lot, always offers a blessing after his teachings and videos. He speaks a truth that he desires to come into being over the listener, based on the teaching he just offered. He is a master of the blessing and I look to him as an example.

The Bible is full of instances of people pronouncing blessings over people. I believe they can take on a prophetic role and "announce" a prophecy that God desires to fulfill in that person's life. That's how I think of them: I think, listen and pray a lot over a blessing before I give it. I don't just want to offer something that sounds cool or pompous. I want it to mean something, and if the person believes it and allows it to happen in their lives, come into fruition.

The blessing is a lost art form, which we should be steadily rediscovering and using. That's my goal.

So please take my blog blessings seriously. Allow them to flow over you as anointing oil flows over the head and drips down the body. Allow them to permeate your being and begin to be fulfilled in your life.

BLESSING:
May you learn to receive the Good Word God sends to you through his people. May you grab onto it, pull it inside and plant it deep within. May you water it, shelter it and allow it to grow into the flowering plant God desires. May you, in turn, become a large flowering plant that others can rest in your shade.