Blessed is the person who...
Psalm 1:1
The first Psalm speaks to me. It remains vibrant and hopeful, challenging and refreshing.
It begins, Blessed is the person... That is an attention-grasper. I want to be blessed. I'm sorry if that comes across as selfish. It isn't. The great thing about real blessing is there is enough to go around. Blessing is not a pie; that when you take a piece and someone else another, there remain two less pieces for me. Blessing is perpetual. It is abundant. It is limitless. Because the true Blessor is all these.
Blessed is not necessarily a state of financial wealth or physical health. I've known blessed people who had neither. I've known many more who have both... and yet are not - at least by their own admission - blessed.
Blessed can include stuff, but it is not limited to stuff. It may have a health component, but it is again not bound there. Blessed can encompass relationships; and although I think we're getting warmer, blessed is not defined by a relationship.
Blessed is all of these and more. Blessed is a state of being. I'm not sure if Blessed is, or if it creates, an attitude. But I know blessed people have a different perspective. Jesus spoke about this state of being, this attitude, in the Thrilla-in-Manilla of sermons (aka, the greatest sermon ever preached), The Sermon on the Mount.
Let's expand Psalm 1 by one word: Blessed is the person who...
A new sense emerges by simply adding the word who. Though we've only added one word, we know what follows will not be something akin to: Blessed is the person who... wins the powerball jackpot. We can feel that blessed as an entitlement is not the direction the Psalmist is headed. Blessed is much more. Blessed, I think we will discover in what follows, is a state of grace that requires and produces a different sort of attitude. Blessed requires and produces a new perspective. Blessed requires and produces a new heart. (By the way, my use of "requires and produces" is kind of chicken-and-egg; they are simultaneous and reciprocal.)
Blessed is the person who... I want that. I want to be that person... for myself, my family and others. What is required? What is produced? Am I truly willing?
Though we've just begun to chip away at the surface of the blessing boulder, I'm going to bless you by keeping this short. More to come as I ponder the first Psalm.
God, I am blessed. You have and are blessing me. Help me to know how blessed I am. Help me to bless people.
For now...
D
