You Can Make Someone’s Day ☀️

I am so grateful today. We have had a gorgeous week here in the Pacific Northwest, just sunshine and blue skies. I find that when the sun comes out for that first spring show-off, I notice all sorts of things I’ve never noticed before. All the colors are brighter. All the flowers are coming out. It was all there before, but wow! Now I can really see it.

Isn’t that what gratitude does for us? When that thankfulness begins to shine in our hearts, it highlights all of the goodness of God. It was always there, but suddenly, we can see it!

You know what I was especially thankful for this morning? You. It means so much to me that you would show up right here and spend a few minutes with me fixing your eyes on Jesus. It might seem like a small thing, maybe you just read these over your morning coffee before you start your day. But every time to believers pause to focus on the Lord, we are participating in relationship with God Himself. Isn’t that wild? I love the way the Lord works.

Your presence right here in this digital space blesses me! I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can bless one another. To bless someone might sound like a holy, church-y word, but in reality it means to do good for someone else. It means to strive for the happiness and well-being of another person. If you could bless one person today, who would it be? What would you do? How would you do it?

Would you text them something encouraging? Would you call them and pray for them? Maybe you could leave food on their doorstep, or mail them a card!

In Genesis 12, we find the story of a man named Abram. This man was called away from his home town and his own people and set a part for God‘s special purpose. God made a promise to Abram saying,

I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you and make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
Genesis 12:2

Now this promise is packed full of meaning! Ultimately, God‘s plan was to use Abram‘s children to bring about restoration on the earth. They would be a whole nation set aside for God, and eventually Jesus would come from Abram‘s family to save the whole world.

But there’s something else going on here, something that we might miss if we don’t pay attention. You see, God blessed Abram so that the whole world would be blessed. The same is true for us. God has blessed each of us in different ways so we can use them to bless other people. Those blessings might be material, like finances or food. Or maybe, your blessings are more intangible, like time, talent, or intellect. However God has blessed you, he wants you to use that blessing to go bless other people.

Now don’t overcomplicate this. Sometimes when we think about blessing people, we think about lifelong goals they take decades to accomplish. When we think like this, it’s easy to get discouraged and not follow through. In reality, blessing someone is fairly simple and straightforward. I believe that all of us have a family member or a coworker or a neighbor that we could bless today.

I can promise you this–if you spend your life looking for ways to bless other people, you’re going to get all kinds of ideas. When you’re at the grocery store, when you’re walking the dog, when you’re picking up your kids from school you’ll see all these ways that you could make someone’s day a little better. These things might seem small, but these are the little ways in which we point people to Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, let’s be the kind of people who bless others. Let’s be the kind of people who make others smile and make their lives just a little bit better. The Lord has richly blessed each and everyone of us with his love. If we can just catch a glimpse of the many ways that Christ has loved us, we can’t help but love the world around us.