Blessed? (When Your World is Rocking)

Reading Time: 4 minutes

So there’s this word with about 47 definitions: blessed.

It’s tagged on a new car on Insta, or on a T-shirt, a SpongeBob meme, or scrawled happily in house word art. But blessed can be confusing to me.

When things are going right, am I blessed by God? When they aren’t–what then?

Point to the Picture of You

A couple of months ago I was deep into Meeting God in Scripture, one of my favorite devotional books to date. (I’m picky.) The passage at hand was one of my favorites, Jesus in the storm on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-41).

It resonated with me deeply. Right now, this storm expresses some aspects of my parenting.

The author, Jan Johnson, asked the reader to look up the Rembrandt painting below. Rembrandt often painted himself into his paintings; it’s suspected he’s the man kneeling in front of Jesus.

Johnson asks, Do you see yourself in one or more of the disciples in the painting?

Maybe I’d be the guy closest to the mast. Though I’m not sure what he’s doing other than working hard. Maybe that’s relevant?

(Which are you?)

When I thought of myself in this storm, I think of my arms like jelly, bailing, bailing. (Don’t you care if we die?)

And when Jesus calms the storm and everyone is hugging and high-fiving? Maybe I’m slumped in the corner.

Sure. I can see the cotton-candy pink and tangerine the storm leaves smeared on the sunset. They’re silencing in their beauty. But I’m just breathing in an attempt to return my heart rate to normal.

I’m also looking at Jesus and shaking out the numbness in my arms and confused as to why that near-death experience was necessary. Why he waited so long.

(I have a good clue in the story of him waiting to come to the death of Lazarus [John 11]).

There are words you might attribute to this: maybe like a mild alienation. Even a sense of hurt that tips toward resentment, I’m sorry to say.

We’d likely say the disciples were blessed. But I’d guess this throws out the “too blessed to be stressed” meme?

When Blessed = Pierced

Yet I see an interesting problem with my beliefs about God as I page through the Bible.

See, when it comes to God not showing up in the way I want him to, when I want him to? When I’m parenting and a child feels like they’re slipping through my hands? (As if he were sleeping?)

I see a lack of love from God. Maybe even a reason for unbelief.

But is that fair? And as a mom, whose kids occasionally feel like I’m way off if I’m responsible for measured pain in their lives, is there a chance there’s a panorama larger than mine?

Case Study #1: John the Baptist

I imagine John the Baptist, slouching in the corner of a fetid cell (Matthew 11): Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?

My head cocks sideways at Erwin McManus’ paraphrased response of Jesus to John:

The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are being raised, but you, John, you are going to die.

God is real, John. The evidence is everywhere; the Kingdom is everywhere. But it’s hard to see in the dark.

My sister, in her post on this, writes poignantly,

For some, the Messiah looks like healing, cleansing, hearing, hope; and for others, it looks like prison. It looks like a life in the wilderness that ends in a beheading.

But “blessed is the one who is not offended.”

I doubt John, in his present state, has a single regret about God’s orchestration of his life.

But maybe when a guard entered solemnly with a sharpened blade, and all his eggs lay in the basket of a Kingdom he couldn’t see? Maybe there was some fear.

Case Study #2: Mary

It was exclaimed over Mary, too, “Blessed are you among women!” You are favored by God!

Maybe we wouldn’t expect this from her life.

As in,

You, an unwed mother, will live in the shame of your community, and a near-divorce.
You will flee the country from your son’s intended infanticide, but your friends won’t make it out.
Your son will die of the sickest form of unjust capital punishment. But not before you’ve wondered if He’s gone off the deep end.
Oh, and You will live in poverty, as will your son. Your nephew will also be executed unjustly, and another one of your sons will also be (as far as we know) tortured to death.

Mary’s #blessed life was also #pierced.

Case #3: Jesus

Well, this one probably isn’t hard to see. Favored by God? Yes: the beloved Son in whom God was well-pleased.

But when he was rejected by every last friend, and bleeding out? Maybe God’s love was harder to see by some.

Here’s what God doesn’t promise us when we follow Jesus:

All the answers (see Job).
Physical rescue (see Jesus).
Lack of weakness (see Paul).
Lack of doubt (see John the Baptist and Elijah).
Happy feelings (see David).

I don’t know in what storm this post finds you, on what sea, in what position on the boat, with what questions. But if you’re nauseated or exhausted or terrified and just wish life would stop its pitch and roll?

He’s there in the boat.

Calming your sea and mine may not look anything like we hoped. It may, for awhile, lead to some anger or confusion or loss. But as the song goes, The waves and wind still know his name.

May you hear the sound of his voice, and keep believing.