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One of the most heart-breaking scenes in the New Testament was when Jesus wept over the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

“If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace- but now it is hidden from your eyes… because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Luke 19: 41, 44

If Jerusalem only had the sense to recognize that the deliverance it needed was actually right there walking in its streets, history could have been a bit different.

Whenever we suffer of the consequences of the wrongs we did, I could just imagine God saying, “if you only knew that the solution was right here, waiting for you to grab it. If you only had the sense to seek it, your life could have been much better.”

In every single time it happens, Jesus weeps over us. Like He did to Jerusalem.

After the anger has subsided, let clarity and understanding come in. And much grace to forgive.

Listen with your eyes. Look at the person when he’s talking. If you keep pressing those cellphone buttons under the table while pretending to be listening, it only means that you DON’T care enough to give the person your undivided attention. In Mark 10: 21, Jesus looked at the rich young ruler in the eyes and loved him.

That looking in the eyes and loving a person are embedded together in one sentence strikes me as odd. In my years of doing discipleship, I have never really understood the connection between the two until few years ago when I talked to a church leader to seek godly counsel. The guy didn’t look at me straight in the eye. He was busy texting and saying “Hi” to everyone who passed by us. In the middle of our uncomfortable conversation, I had the unmistakable feeling that he didn’t care enough to listen closely.

One thing hit me: Jesus was right. Looking in the eye and loving a person are two very related facts of life.

Sadly, many people just don’t get it. Whenever they meet with people they profess to be important, their cellphone habits give them away within minutes of the conversation. If only we could muster all the strength we have to keep our hands off our cellphones, who knows how many people would feel loved and cared for?

Just a thought.

Farming is a joint venture between God and the farmer. The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do.

I was skimming over Jerry Bridges’ book “The Pursuit of Holiness” when this quote at the introduction literally jumped at me. It’s a farming analogy that I can’t quite keep off my head. I was born in a farm so I know very well what he was talking about. Let me explain:

When a farmer plants a seed, he does so with definite faith that the seed will not stay dead under the ground. When I was a kid, I was amazed at the precise dates my father could predict the start of the planting schedule. I’d often hear him tell my mother that we’d start planting, say, on a Wednesday and true enough, the rice seedlings will be ready on that same day. I didn’t understand it at first until I realized that my father actually counts the number of days the seeds will be on the seed bed.

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t being spiritual about it. My father only knew Jesus few years before he died in 2004. What he was doing was actually a simple belief in the fact that nature would cause the seeds to grow in time given the right environment. He may not have believed God at that time but he trusted that the system itself will work the way it should. In principle, he trusted the God of nature. He partnered with the trustworthiness of God’s created ecosystem. He knew by experience that it always works. By extension, he was leaning on the faithfulness of the God who was the power behind the forces of nature that caused everything to work as they should.

The side comment I scrawled on the side of the book the day I read Bridges’ introduction pretty much summarizes the whole point I’m making.

The farmer diligently does his work and trusts nature to do its part. Farmers plant, water, take away weeds and make sure the plants are okay, but ultimately the growing and the bearing of fruits are up to the God who created the whole system. Inadvertently, even non-believing farmers trust the providence of God for their crops to grow. But of course they will never admit it.

When God said in Genesis 12 that we will become a blessing to others, I’m pretty sure He wasn’t talking about us sending Facebook, email and text messages with a “God Bless You” clincher at the end.

No sir, I’m guessing it’s more than that.

The curious thing is that most Christians have gotten so used to throwing around lots of “God Bless Yous” everyday that most of the time it sounds like an empty benediction, devoid of power, spirituality and conviction. Not that I don’t want to hear it, I mean, if you ask me, I would like to be blessed everyday. Everybody does, too. But the question is, to be blessed with what, exactly?

The way we use the phrase today, “God bless you” is like wishing someone luck, safety, long life, good health, and all the other positive vibes in between. These are all good stuff. But what’s really amiss is that we seldom pause to consider that this pronouncement is actually rooted in the Aaronic Benediction that is NEVER, ever taken lightly in ancient Israel. In Numbers 6: 24- 26, only the high priests would utter this very solemn, powerful invocation:

“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”‘

More than the solemn tone of a deeply spiritual benediction, the blessedness that is invoked in “God bless you” implies our need for blameless living. In other words, when you tell someone “God bless you,” you are actually telling that person to quit fooling around, get his act together and start living a holy life by obeying God. That is the only way for your benediction to really take effect on his life. Psalms 119: 1 spells it out quite plainly:

Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD.

Did you catch that? Only the blameless and the obedient can truly be blessed. Otherwise, your pronouncement of blessing will just fall on empty ears and it will just be another empty benediction that never truly come to pass.