“How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” Psalm 146:5
Why is the one mentioned above blessed? We cannot see this God. We cannot touch this God or hear Him audibly or use our other senses to apprehend Him! So how can one like myself or any other person be blessed? Is He real? Again, what is real? Does He really help and what, by the way, is real help?
I look at the world with all its ups and downs and am convinced that there must be something more. No one truly changes anything in the grand scheme of the universe. The shear immense grandeur of the world, just our world, is enough to stagger the proud heart of we humans. If we are honest, we know we are but “dust in the wind” as the 70s rock song cries out. Puny is an understatement.
It could follow, in my tainted logic (read here with great ironic appreciation), that I encounter this God when the “reality” of this world overruns the “reality” of my senses and I acknowledge my inability to change anything, really. I see, touch, hear, taste, smell and know God when my abilities to order my universe are smacked into submission before the actual “reality.”
I find it a singularly overpowering revelation that we tend to encounter God, and His goodness, help and hope, when we find ourselves without recourse. When we have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, God maintains His presence, power and pardon to those who will “see” Him then. I can hope and fear and follow in faith when my own self is prostrate before the creator, getting the order right. The created bowing before the creator. This blessing may not seem that welcome to those who would reject Him categorically, but to those who have experienced the nowhere of the bankrupt heart, it is cool water on a hot day. Because I am weak and He is strong, He has my attention and I am blessed.
This blessing, however, is not like what we human miscreants typically seek after. It is not money, fame, power, sex or any other of our shallow desires. This blessing may be contentment, peace, confidence or balance. The blessing could be as simple as waking to a new day glad that we have opportunity to take another breath, touch another life in hope and love, or feel the fragile nature of our body and rejoice in the basic wonder of life. It could be a kind word given or received. Such is this blessing.
Some may not find the above description of the blessing as that satisfying, but from the vacant, longing heart, where there is no escape, it is help and hope from the Lord our God.
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