Blessings

We had a weekend conference at our church on the power of spoken blessings. Actually, we didn't talk about that topic until Saturday because we ended up spending the whole time on Friday in prayer and worship (which was a breath of life from the Holy Spirit).

But anyway, Friday morning before the conference started, I was praying at home. I said to the Lord that He just absolutely had to answer my prayers (talk about being a little bossy!!) regarding relationships. Just to fill you in: The Lord has been convicting me in the area of fear of man. I struggle in some relationships because I am far too concerned about what people think of me. As a result of this fear, there has been tension in some relationships. So, I asked the Lord, in His mercy, to answer this prayer RIGHT AWAY.

And He did!! I knew that we would be talking about blessings and I had just finished the book, The Power of Spoken Blessings by Bill Gothard. I thought that the book was great, but I didn't really understand the power that blessing another person could have. At the conference, our pastor emphasized how blessing another person has such a profound affect on relationships. After hearing what he had to say, I raised my hand and explained how the Lord had answered my prayer from Friday morning (I knew this was the answer when our pastor started talking about relationships). Then, our pastor said that was good and that the Lord was going to give me even more freedom now, because everyone there was going to say a prayer of blessing for me (there are only about 50 people, including kiddos, at our church).

Really, this is so powerful. Talk about eradicating fear and replacing it with sweet words of encouragement and power. Read in Numbers 6, and you'll see how the Lord commanded Aaron to bless the children of Israel. And if Aaron wouldn't have spoken blessing over them, then they wouldn't be blessed! Wow! Obviously, it is God who does the blessing. But, He asks us to participate in blessing others. What a privilege and honor.

David and I have been spending the past couple of days taking every opportunity that we can to speak blessings to our children, friends and one another. What a gift we can give to those around us--the blessings of God!