Week 6: The Blessing
Weekly Reading:
Leviticus 21 - Numbers 10
Opening Prayer
Father God,
I am joyful that I am alive and wake to blessings every morning. Sometimes, Father, I find it challenging to find the blessings You have for me. Sometimes, I see what is a blessing as a hardship. Father, speak to me today, give me a heart for listening, open my eyes to the world around me that You want me to see.
Amen
Study
I find comfort in words, thoughts, prayers. The priest's blessing on the people of Israel is so soothing, so peaceful, so powerful.
May the Lord bless you and protect you
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you
May the Lord show you his favor and give you peace
Numbers 6:24-26
The Israelites were journeying into foreign lands, venturing to a new location of promise, filled with milk and honey, and of blessing and sanctuary. The landscape of today is so different than the promise of tomorrow.
But God has plans for the Israelites. What they were going through today was preparation for the future. Their today created a reliance on and trust in the Lord if they had faith and kept the belief in God. God prepared His people using guidelines and rituals; guidelines meant to keep his people living a holy life and rituals for atonement when they did not. God's goal in the lives of the Israelites was to birth a people who lived for and in celebration of God. And by living as God commanded, He would bless his people.
May God bless you and protect you.
Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. Psalms 118:26
Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God, our God, will richly bless us. Psalms 67:7
God desires to bless his people, those who follow him and fear him (hold him high in a place of reverence). God wants to keep us close to him.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you
May God be merciful and bless us. May his face smile with favor on us. Psalm 67:1
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:16
To smile is synonymous with finding favor in God's people and being satisfied with them. His grace, his kindness with us, deserved or not, will follow us.
May the Lord show you his favor and give you His peace.
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Psalms 106:4
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Isaiah 26:3
By believing in and acting in faith following God, we will find God's favor and his peace.
Further in Numbers 6:27, God commands that whenever Aaron and his sons bless the people, God too will bless them.
"So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them." Numbers 6:27
God loves us. His desire for us is love and peace, living in his grace. As we think of our blessings each day, let's also say prayers of blessings over each other.
May the Lord bless you and protect you
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you
May the Lord show you his favor and give you peace
Numbers 6:24-26
Closing Prayer
Father God,
Your mercy is fresh every day. Your love and blessings shine like the sun. We are fortunate in so many ways, and despite our sinful natures, You continue to watch over and provide for us. Father God, today I pray for those who do not know You and know Your grace and love. Father, watch over them, guide them, open their hearts to you.
Amen
Homework
Pray that God may open your mind to the blessings He has given you today.
Journal about those blessings.
Find places in your life where you are struggling and pray that God will show you the blessing amidst the struggle.
