In the summer of 2022, I embarked on a quest to understand “blessing” in a more comprehensive way. I suspected that when my friends or I used or heard the word “blessed” or “blessing” we had only a partial picture of what it means. I started my research reading Divine Blessing: And the Fullness of Life in the Presence of God by William R. Osborne. At the time, I wondered about the influence of the prosperity gospel in America — primarily, it’s the notion that you know God loves you because God gives you stuff – blessings – when you are obedient and faithful. It is more nuanced than that to be fair, but the idea that wealth and opportunity are evidence of God’s blessing is strongly emphasized in the prosperity gospel. It’s also conveniently rooted in the values of American culture. The American Dream is that with diligence, patience, and cleverness we can all have a family, a house with a yard and white picket fence, a dog, a car, good health, and time off for vacations. Success is just waiting for those who work for it.
The shadow side of all this is the assumption that if you are not wealthy, or healthy, or employed, or in a “nice” neighborhood, at worst, it is God’s punishment, and at best, it is the consequence of one’s own actions. Maybe it’s the parent’s fault, but even then it remains one’s own responsibility to overcome their past. Thus, if you haven’t yet been blessed by God with good things and opportunities, then there’s a reason and it’s probably that you need to work harder, be more faithful, more obedient, more clever.
Most people won’t admit they think this way. In fact, most people I know don’t think this way, but we do act this way. We feel safer, blessed, loved by God when we get the new job, when we get the healing and our project is approved. We feel abandoned by God when we get the diagnosis, when we miss the chance, when our vacation is canceled. We don’t believe the poor are cursed by God, but we also don’t get too close to them personally. In fact, we give generously to them. Well, we give to organizations that serve the poor. Their lives are messy and difficult and painful even to witness. We worry. What if they take advantage of me or what if they assume bad things about me? What if they need more than I can give? What if they aren’t doing anything wrong? We feel inadequate and confused and out of control, so we keep our distance and love them from afar.
For many, “blessing” is just the pretty Christian-veneer on consumerism and materialism, a way to give the American economy some kind of theological justification.
To be sure, there are passages in which God promises to bless the people with land and prosperity and family and security for their faithfulness to Him and obedience to His commands. But there are other Biblical passages that are far less transactional. William Osborne’s book, Divine Blessing, traces the meaning and use of the word and concept of blessing throughout the Bible. This was my starting place.
In his book, Osborne argues that from a biblical-theological perspective, God’s blessings are material AND spiritual AND relational AND present AND eschatological. He writes,
“Divine blessing in the Bible is always physical and spiritual because it is fixed upon the reality of the fullness of life in the presence of God.”
Blessing is everything that is needed to be fully alive in the presence of God. So God’s blessings can be food and land and family, but it is also God’s presence and teachings. To be blessed is more fully available now because of Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit, but it’s also still not something we can completely realize. The fullness of life in the presence of God is the gift and the goal of the God Who Blesses.
Blessing is everything that is needed to be fully alive in the presence of God.
The fulfillment of this life abundant is on its way. For now, we wait, in various degrees of comfort and dis-ease, to experience the fullness of life in God, in BOTH a physical and spiritual and present way. So as far as the Bible is concerned,
“The relationship between the spiritual blessings and the consummation of physical blessings is a matter of redemptive-historical timing.”
God waits and works toward this consummation because God is, and has always been, working to ensure that ALL people are blessed.
Blessing is not just something we receive from God, it is something we are (blessed) and something we do (bless others).
Primarily, what I learned is that blessing is really not about stuff or opportunity. If anything, the more stuff and opportunity people have, the more we risk losing connection to the Giver if we focus on the gift.
“So the question that contemporary Christians should ask when evaluating whether this thing or that circumstance is God’s blessing should be: Does this ‘blessing’ draw me closer to the triune God? Does this need being met bring me nearer to the giver, or is it a distraction?”
At the core, something is a blessing if it helps us connect more fully with God and with God’s Creation.
It is the essence of the God of the Bible to bless His Creation. I had assumed they were gold stars for good work. They aren’t. They are expressions of love to connect all of us to God. Blessings cannot be hoarded nor do they prove one’s righteousness. Blessing is all that God does to draws us deeper into life abundant in his presence.
So yes, the new car could be a blessing. But there could also be blessing in the diagnosis, and the job loss, and the friend who listened, and the hard labor, and the soft pillow, and the hope that tomorrow will be better.