Cut through the clichés and get to the realness of God’s blessings for us

Within Western cultures there are so many religious/Christian clichés which distort and render shallow and ineffectual what God is really trying to give us. The problem is that we first see these clichés and then experience their hold over us – that is, before we get a chance to cut through them, and get to the realness of who God is for us.

For example, take the cliché of being blessed by God – what do we see first? Most of us will probably picture something like a priest smiling sweetly, and patting our heads as little children. Following the cliché through, we might also look up at this benevolent authority figure, and us being supposedly pleased that at least a little attention is being shown to us. We then may picture ourselves running off and getting on with our lives, quickly forgetting this ineffectual and patronising pat-on-the-head! The big problem is that, in a flash, as we let this cliché get a hold, God becomes the priest in our minds, and we cannot see anymore who God is.

   

How do we cut through this cliché, then, and get to what is true about God? We need to ditch the cliché and look more closely at the Bible translations and get ‘under the skin’ of the radical and deep goodness God really wants to give us. In the Amplified Bible, for example, translating Mathew 5 and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we see blessings coming from all kinds of strange sources and angles, with a rich collage of descriptions of God's blessings. According to this translation, when God blesses us, God gives us, for example, happiness, joy, refreshment, peace, security, nourishment, satisfaction, spiritual maturity, comfort, love – in short, we might say, he gives us life and well-being!

These blessings from God are now no longer ineffectual pats-on-the-heads, but a wholly transformative power, which prompts us to shout out loud, and claim and confirm the glory of being alive, and the promise of being liberated by God’s love for us. In other words, God's blessings give us everything which is good and seeks to take away all those things which hurt us, oppress us, and steal God’s well-being from us. As Jesus said to his disciples in John 10:10:

“The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).”

All we must do in response is accept this gift – and this can happen in a prayer: 

“Lord Jesus I so want and need this gift of your blessing. Please make this gift real to me and show me how to receive it, so I can have and enjoy life, in all its abundance until it overflows, as you have promised. Amen.”