When God calls us blessed, we know we are blessed. But often what He calls blessing is not something that we typically would ask for as a blessing. We tend to associate blessing with prosperity, health and relationships. That is, we think of blessing as being primarily about us and ours. That’s kind of sad in a way, because blessing in God’s eyes is primarily about Him.
Speaking to His disciples after telling them that the crowd had dull ears and closed eyes, Jesus said, “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”
It is a blessing to be able to physically see at all. Many are those who cannot see. The wonder of the sunset, the glory of the stars at night, the beauty of the fog winding through the trees in the valley below – these things are cut off from them. Likewise, it is a blessing to be able to hear sound. Many are those who are deaf. The majesty of the symphony, the peacefulness of the birds singing in the countryside, the roar of the crowd – these things are cut off from them. The blessing of one of our five senses is something we usually take for granted until we are at risk of loosing it. Only then do we realize just what a blessing it truly is.
So it is with physical blessings that almost all have. But it is a particular blessing to be able to not only physically see, but perceive what God is doing. It is another particular blessing to be able to not only hear, but to know God speaking to you.
Certainly most people cannot see what God is doing, and many are oblivious to His Voice. We get that, because all who know God know that unless you’ve washed your sins away by means of Christ’s sacrifice, you cannot really see or hear God at all. Yet there are also many who’ve done that – who even attend churches every week and can plainly see what the church is doing and what the pastor and elders are doing, but they cannot see what God is doing. They have no idea that He is leading His church. They assume that the pastor and elders are doing that. They are oblivious to where He wants the church to go or what He wants the church – and themselves – to be about.
For them, the inspiration of knowing the thread of His voice speaking over the church from season to season is completely inaudible. The same people can see the news and read the newspaper, but they have no idea that God is in charge of history. They have no idea that He is bringing the world to a conclusion. They assume that chaos is reigning, and God is only periodically making an appearance via coincidence and miracle. They cannot see that He is moving whole people groups from place to place for a reason. They see only refugees and displaced people. That God means to humiliate Satan (who inspired the carnage that drove them from their homes) through the redemption of those people by means of the Gospel (which is why God opened a way of escape, so that they might yet hear the Gospel) – that thought never even enters their minds.
Blessed are you when you can see what God is doing in and through His people, and blessed are you when you can see what He is accomplishing. Blessed are you when you can hear His Voice. Blessed are you when you know Him speaking to you, and blessed are you when you hear Him speaking through others!
But more blessed still is the one who hears and then acts.
God gave the birds the instinct to know the seasons and the times of their migrations, but He gave people so much more: a spirit within to hear God’s voice and understand His Law. Made in the image of God, men and women ought to be as obedient to divine instruction as birds are to natural instinct.
Warren Wiersbe
APPLICATION: Thankfulness
Think back to the last time God spoke to you. Then, rejoice! God spoke, and you heard Him!