Bless the Lord

Hubby and I began our Christian walk in the Baptist and Lutheran denominations. Today God has us at Our Lord’s Community Church and though it has been rocky from the start, we feel called to be there. I have learned so much since we arrived, the Spirit is moving in this little Dutch Reformed denomination! Since we arrived there, we have been inundated with favor and blessing and healing and love. All of those beautiful things brought me to a really cool place with the Lord and recently when we were worshiping Him, we sang the words, “Bless the Lord, oh my soul”. If you have been in Christian churches much or listened to Christian radio, you may have heard those words. Have you ever stopped to think about why we are blessing the Lord? He is the Creator of all things, why would He need any blessings? I asked Him those questions recently and what I know about Him is that if I ask, He will answer. Sometimes the answers are immediate and other times they come in over time. He answered this one over time and I wanted to share my thoughts on it with you.

The simple answer to that question is that we bless Him because He blesses us. That seems logical and easy right? But going deeper, how can I bless Him? He led me to a Scripture in Psalms 16:7 that reads,

“I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me.”

David knew that blessing the Lord was a good thing and I think he definitely knew how. The Psalms are filled with songs of praise and worship to the living God. But, we can’t walk around singing all the time and get our jobs done, right? So how else can we bless the Lord?

For my own life and answer, God has been showing me that I can bless Him every day through the way that I love. Hubby brought up a tiff we’d had at our weekly check-in last week. I really knew it was all my fault that we’d argued. I got frustrated with him out of my own stuff and then took it out on him. I don’t think that I blessed the Lord in that moment and I know that I didn’t bless Hubby. When he brought it to me, my heart cringed a bit. I knew I did not bless Jesus with the way I acted and He has repeatedly shown me and told me that my first ministry is at home. I hope that I respond next time rather than react so that I do love Hubby well.

We bless Jesus by loving one another well. We bless Him by spending time in His presence and listening to Him when He speaks. We bless Him by taking our sick kids food because we know they probably don’t feel well enough to make something. We bless Him by not judging others harshly or making anyone feel “less than”. We bless Jesus by being honest with one another when our experience with them hasn’t been such a blessing. We bless Jesus when our motives to love come from our desperate need to be loved and receiving that Love directly from Him.

I long to bless the Lord with my life. I do not always do it well. The closer I get to Him and the more I find myself rooted in His love for me, the more I recognize how badly I fail. Gratefully I also know His amazing grace and mercy and that helps me to forgive myself in those failures and know that He will make good out of all of them. I definitely have not arrived. I know that I am a sinner in need of a Savior and I know that Christ in me is working to bring me to the original design He created so that I will bless Him with all that I am, all the time. Until then, I pray that the blessing of His love will ring through me to all people.