“Blessed be your name when the sun’s shining down on me, when the world’s all as it should be. Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering though there’s pain in the offering… BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD!”
This morning I am sitting at my desk with this song filling the air. My heart is aching from the road marked with suffering. There is indeed pain in the offering. There is pain in my offering. I know there is pain in your offering.
As earth dwellers we all are carrying the hurt of our past experiences. We have lost marriages and spouses. We have lost babies and children. We have been abused, mistreated and attacked by the enemy. We have lost our jobs, our homes and our purpose. We have lost hope and buried our dreams. We have wandered away from grace.
We wake and wonder how we will survive it. The weight is heavy. The burden is suffocating. The loss drags us and drowns us.
Today is the day we must take those painful offerings and carry them no more. Today we must lay them on the altar. Today they must be sacrificed to a God who is able.
Our pain will not enslave us another day. Our hurts will not define us. Our loss will not hold us captive any more.
Instead, we will be redefined. We will stake our claim, our claim as a child of the Most High. We will enslave ourselves to the healer. We will define our selves by grace. We will be captive only to hope.
These are the crucial moments of the redeemed to not turn our face from God, but to shout with our hearts and our mouths to the Almighty, “Blessed be your name.”
“You give and take away. My heart will choose to say. Blessed be your name.”
He may give. He may take away. He may allow us to be tried and tested and even tempted. But he is God. He is on his throne. He is just. He is love. He is salvation. And his name is blessed.
And so today, I am taking the hurt and the pain laying it down. It is my offering to my redeemer. It is my hope that his hands protect me, his words heal me and his mercy washes over me.
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