Bless the Lord (Part 1)

 

Have you noticed? This life is full of wounds from words misspoken and misunderstood.

Praise is how you speak life into your dreams, promise over your people, and hope for eternity. We call it a blessing.

Did you know that in the Bible God repeatedly blessed his people? Did you know he is speaking blessings over you now? (see Num. 6:25-26; Ps. 139:5; Zeph. 3:17; )

It is God's character to bless his children. And since we, his children, were created in His image, it should be part of our character to bless one another.

When our daughter was going through the turbulent-threes, it seemed we were battling her strong will at every turn. She was stubborn. We were resolved. No one was winning--and we were losing patience. Sometimes I felt like I was losing my mind. Our daily toe-to-toes with our three-foot tall tyrant was bringing unrest to our hearts and our home.

I went to God in prayer for our little child, desperately crying out for help in how to raise her well. I knew if something didn't change now we would lose our foundation of trust and discipline in the formative years. I shuttered to imagine the teen years if we didn't begin learning these lessons now.

When I go back and read through a few of my journal entries, I see a mom who was weary and bewildered. Nevertheless, God is faithful. He was not going to leave us there in the wilderness, wondering how we would ever survive the toddler years (the teen years are still ahead—we won't faint now!).

 

 

Like many parents, we have a picture in our head of what it looks like to leave a legacy for our child. For me, that means we teach her the love of God and live it by example.

The biggest challenge I had as a mom during the that season was living it—living love because God is love--and how could I show love to my little child if I didn't even like her sometimes? Just being honest. The struggle was real.

The answer had to come with a changed heart. So that's how I began to pray. And I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit because he taught me some valuable lessons about how God loves his children as the Perfect Parent.

One of the treasures he planted in my heart is the understanding that as an image bearer of Christ, I have been given the authority as her mother to bless my child, just as God the Father has the divine authority to bless us, his children.

The Lord began showing me how he does this in my life, He as my Father, and me as his beloved child. I began to practice these things with my own daughter, and soon our hearts found healing from the bitter root planted there. Most significantly our relationship with our child began to mend.

These lessons are the inspiration for this blog series Speak Praise. So if you have been following thus far, you should pat yourself on the back! Seriously because this journey has not been a light one.

I imagined when I began this writing challenge that my series would give lots of opportunities to learn how to praise God more. Sounds happy and refreshing right? Little did I know that God would be doing heart surgery on me, bringing me deeper still, and healing some wounds I couldn't even see.

To read more and learn the secret to finding healing and grace in your relationships, click here to read Part 2 of this post, and see what God did that inspired me to write this month's series Speak Praise... 

If you are reading my blog for the first time and would like to see other posts in the series Speak Praise, click here. If anything you've read here has been a blessing to you, please comment and share with others on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Thank you for reading!