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e often think about blessings in terms of possessions, things received. It’s not unusual to hear someone say, “God blessed us with this house” or, “She was blessed to receive a scholarship”—and let’s be clear, we’re not wrong when we credit God (which is to say, give Him glory) for the things we have.
But thinking about blessings merely in terms of possessions can skew our understanding of what Scripture means when we see instances of humans blessing God. For example, we find this command frequently in the psalms. Psalm 96:2 and Psalm 100:4 instruct us to bless the name of the Lord. Psalm 103:2 and Psalm 104:1 form the basis of what has famously been put to music: “Bless the Lord, O my soul!”
Obviously, there’s no possession I can give to the God of creation who owns the cattle on 1,000 hills. So how in the world can I bless God?
These questions hit me hard recently in a most unexpected place—the gym. As I was working out, the song “Promises” by Maverick City began to play through my headphones. I’ve heard—and sung—this song more times than I can count, but for some reason, a couple of lines impacted me differently than they had before:
I’ll still bless you—in the middle of my storm, in the middle of my trial,
I’ll still bless you—in the middle of the road, when I don’t know where to go …
His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He is God, and He is doing something good.
I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. There have been no major crises, but instead, a series of annoying challenges that have been labor-intensive, attention-hogging, and frustrating to say the least. We all experience these kinds of challenges—they don’t typically change the course of our lives, but they threaten to dislodge us from comfort and disrupt whatever plans we’ve made for ourselves. Nobody wakes up and says, “You know, Lord, I’d love a little more adversity to toughen me up this week,” and yet we know God absolutely uses storms and trials to achieve His purposes.
Pain and discomfort tend to make us forget those truths, and I certainly have been guilty of that lately. My complaints have been numerous enough to fill a football stadium. If pouting was an Olympic sport, I’d be well on my way to gold. I’ve asked God why these things had to happen right now (as if there’s a different time I’d gladly accept difficulty). And as I lay in the gym floor between sets that morning, I felt like the Lord reminded me of something: out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
So what does all this have to do with blessing God? I think one of the primary ways we can bless God is through faith. Not the kind of faith that saves us, but the kind of faith that sustains us—the kind that says, “Lord, I don’t like this but I know you are at work, and I trust whatever work that is.” This is the kind of faith that delivers the peace Jesus promises.
How can you bless God today? Trust Him—and bless Him by telling Him you trust Him. You don’t have to like what He is doing, and His shoulders are certainly big enough for you to be honest with Him about that, but in the end, His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He is God, and He is doing something good.
