Blessing and Blessed
If you’ve never spent time reading and praying the Psalms, you have missed out.
The Psalms are spiritual poems/songs. They pour forth every human emotion there is. They sing out praise and cry out lament to the Divine. They express deep trust in Creator, and they strongly question Creator’s intentions and character. They offer wisdom and confusion. They ring with the highest of human potential and with the worst of human vitriol.
In other words, the Psalms are us. Whatever mood we may be in, we can find a psalm to match it.
I have many “favorite” psalms, so please do not ask me to choose just one. And one of those favorites is Psalm 103. I share a portion of that psalm here with some word changes to reflect my present understanding of the Divine:
Bless True Life, O my soul,
and all that is within me, the holy name of Creator.
Bless True Life, O my soul
and never forget all Creator’s benefits.It is Love who forgives all your sins,
who heals every one of your ills,
who redeems your life from the grave,
who crowns you with love and compassion,
who fills your life with good things,
renewing your youth like an eagle’s.True Life is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
not always finding fault,
nor persisting in anger forever.
Creator does not treat us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our faults. (103:1-5, 8-10)
When we know Creator as True Life, as the One who offers us, teaches us, and leads us into true life, we will be blessed and we will be a blessing to Creator.
How can a mere human bless the One who has created all that is, visible and invisible? How can we offer anything to Creator that would be so meaningful to Them?
When we seek to know and do the will of Creator, when we do our best to follow the ways of True Life, we bring Creator joy. Creator doesn’t expect us to get it right all the time. We are all still learning how to love and how to be loved. We will mess it up sometimes, probably more often than not. Even so, our efforts to love are pleasing to Creator.
Thomas Merton, a 20th century Trappist monk and prolific author, wrote a beautiful prayer which you can read in full at this link: Merton Prayer. Here, I simply want to share these lines:
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going….
and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
It is the desires of our heart that show Creator our true selves. Do we truly want what Creator wants even if we don’t always know how to express those wants in ways that best reflect Creator’s intentions? Do we want to love as Creator loves even if we don’t always show that love in ways that meet Creator’s standards? If the answer to these questions is Yes, then we are pleasing to Creator, and Creator will help us keep moving toward a more perfect reflection of Their love.
When we mess up, we do not need to beat up on ourselves. We do not need to wallow in self-contempt or chastise ourselves over and over again. As Psalm 103 reminds us, Love (Creator) forgives us and sets us back on the path of true life. Our Creator is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” and so we need only turn to Them (repent) and ask for guidance and some extra training.
We must not think of Creator through the lens of our humanness. Rather, we must think of ourselves through the lens of the Divine. We are not always patient, loving, compassionate, and gracious. Creator is. We may too quickly find fault and stew in our anger. Creator does not. Our life purpose is to become more like Creator—to live true life.
If we are to experience true life, then we need to seek the ways of True Life and learn to be patient, loving, compassionate, and gracious. We need to learn to look beyond others’ faults and see within them the Divine spark. We must let go of our anger quickly and move toward forgiveness and understanding.
Having said all that, I also recognize that there are those persons who are so hard-hearted as to have turned completely against the ways of True Life. They have set themselves against the kin-dom of Christ and seek only to gain and hoard wealth and power for themselves.
When we encounter such recalcitrant souls, we love them not by letting their behaviors slide but by holding them accountable and requiring them either to agree to live by the ways of True Life or be cast out of the community until they do so agree. This is not about judging them but about preventing them from continuing to harm others. It is an act of love because we are telling them that we know they are capable of so much better. It is an act of compassion because we are refusing to allow them to continue doing things that will harm their own spirits.
Creator never forces anyone to act in line with Creator’s ways, and neither should we. We cannot fix anyone else. However, neither can we allow others to keep hurting us. This truth is probably the underlying foundation of some (albeit not all) of those biblical texts in which the human author casts Creator in the role of a violent, vindictive deity. What seems to our human minds to be wrath and vindictiveness from Creator is actually love working for the good of humanity.
Consider the different people in your life, be they close to you or somehow tangentially involved with your well-being (I’m especially thinking of people like politicians and other powerful figures in this latter category). How might you demonstrate love toward them? Who needs a gentle hand and who needs a firmer push of accountability? How can you be a sign of Christ to both sorts?