Feeling blessed
As we consider our circumstances, we may or may not feel blessed to one degree or another. But even if we’re not feeling particularly fortunate in our current situation, we can find and feel blessings by looking a bit deeper.
That’s because God is always blessing each of us with spiritual qualities and inspiration that can bring harmony into our daily lives – even where human will and its accompanying discords seem to prevail. As the Bible affirms, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).
How are we blessed? We are blessed by God’s love for us as His children, created and maintained by God in His likeness, spiritual and perfect. That’s our true identity, our only real identity. And God – divine Love itself – blesses each of us with the ability to think clearly, impelled by love for God and for one another. This spiritual thinking results in better health and morals.
Our job is to gratefully acknowledge, cherish, adhere to, and trust God’s blessings. Knowing and loving every person in their spiritual identity is how Jesus healed the sick and saved sinners. Jesus expected us to live out from our true identity as God’s reflection, and thus to experience God’s blessings in our own lives – and to bring these blessings and their healing effects into the lives of others.
We can feel and experience God’s blessings by looking at things from a spiritual, instead of a material, point of view, as Christ Jesus did. Jesus honored and loved God as the only creator, and he loved each individual in his or her true identity as the spiritual, flawless reflection of God. Thus, “Jesus gave the true idea of being, which results in infinite blessings to mortals,” as Mary Baker Eddy wrote in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 325).
Day by day, we can strive to bear witness to the “true idea of being.” It’s our Christ-appointed duty to go “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).
This doesn’t necessarily mean standing in public and preaching for everyone to hear. It means cherishing in our heart and consciousness such a deep and sincere love for God, and for every individual as God’s whole and loved spiritual offspring, that we naturally express and reflect this love in daily life.
With love for God and man abiding in our hearts, we are able to regard discordant conditions as lacking the staying power they may seem to have. We are equipped and ready to respond in a healing way whenever discord or disease comes to our attention, or when someone asks us to pray for them.
The whole world needs our prayers. And for our own good, as well as for the good of those around us, we can treat our own thought each day with the truth of spiritual being regarding whatever comes to our attention. In other words, we can acknowledge God’s love for us and for everyone. We feel blessed when we do that – which in turn impels us to be there for others seeking healing through prayer, and even find ways to touch the lives of those we pass on the street.
Almost every day I go for an hour-long walk in the late afternoon. As I walk, I actively pray to see and love the God-given good in every individual I cross paths with.
Recently, a woman I encounter often as I’m walking stopped me to tell me how good and happy our interactions make her feel. This was the first time we had spoken to each other except to smile and say a quick hello. What a blessing! Thank You, God!
God’s blessings ripple outward whenever we feel and live them.
