A Divine Blessing
It had been a long and difficult journey. For forty years, the Israelites had wandered in the scorching deserts of the Middle East as they searched for the new homeland God had promised them.
Moses, their divinely ordained leader, claimed he was following God’s orders. But over the past four decades, there had been many times when he looked more lost than everyone else.
By the time the Israelites got to Mount Sinai, the holy mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God, they numbered more than one million souls (Num. 1:46).
To commemorate their efforts thus far, God gave them a special blessing.
God communicated these verses recorded in Numbers to Moses, who passed them on to his brother, Aaron, and Aaron’s sons, who served as the Hebrews’ first priests.
Aaron and his brothers then communicated God’s blessing to the people.
After years spent in captivity in Egypt and years more spent wandering in the desert, the people received this divine blessing as a welcome relief.
The Bible is a book of many blessings. Some of them come directly from the mouth of God. Many others are human blessings.
But the one thing they all have in common is that they are designed to confer a sense of grace and inspiration to the person receiving the blessing.
Many of us have lost touch with the ancient practice of blessing others, even though we certainly need to be blessed as much as earlier people did.
If someone sneezes, you might hear another person say, “Bless you,” but many of us go through much of our lives without receiving blessings from or giving them to the people around us.
If you want to change that, try blessing loved ones or family members whenever you meet. This can take the form of an unspoken prayer for them, or it can be a brief but sincere comment: “God bless you.”
Just about anyone or anything can be blessed, and the blessings can be offered in either informal or formal ways. Many people seek the prayers and blessings of friends before starting a new venture, such as a new job or a move to a distant city.
In such cases, blessings can be a powerful source of comfort and reassurance. Some churches have more formal services for blessing a new house or new office space.
In such cases, a priest visits the site and leads the occupants through a prescribed ritual.
Once a year, many Anglican and Episcopal churches host a blessing of the animal’s services to honor the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint who had a deep love for creation.
In your own life, you may even want to try blessing the co-worker or boss who annoys you or the driver who cuts in front of you on the highway.
This may seem like a lot of work at first, but once you get in the swing of things, blessing others—and being blessed yourself—will become a bigger part of your life.
And like the Israelites, you will find the kind words a healing salve during a tough journey.
Thank you, God, for blessing us, and helping me to be a blessing to others.