A few years ago, while looking at the Beatitudes, I recognized that I was fighting the place of blessing – again and again! In the last few months, I’ve listened to Matt Chandler’s teaching on the Beatitudes, and it caused me to think on this again. I have drawn from him in the descriptions below. The fighting is mine – not his!

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit. Acknowledging our obvious need seems so wise, so necessary, so logical, but I have found it so hard. This poor means having nothing you need. I have preferred not to be needy. I have agonized over not being enough! How futile. How counterproductive. I want to be blessed!!

Blessed are they who mourn. Mourning was not on my want to list. I was doing the best I could with the people I loved to put that time off as long as possible. But no matter how positive we try to be, no matter how much we believe God, no matter how hard we work, mourning comes to us, and God has blessing for us there.

God gives us permission to grieve and to enter into the sadness of the world. We fight that place when we suppress our pain or hide ourselves or comfort ourselves (in defeating ways) to try to avoid the pain. We are allowed to be sad to lament. There is no need to pretend.

Just heard on an old Dateline that grief is a dance between the sadness of great loss and the joy that you were ever privileged and blessed to have experienced what you’ve lost. So true!

God also invites us to mourn our sin. We fight that place when we rationalize, justify, or call it by another name. Conviction is a call to a better life, to healing and realigning ourselves. As we mourn our sin and the brokenness of the world, we gain the compassion of Christ. We love Him more. We are more grateful. We abide more.

We also fight that place of blessing when we allow Satan to turn conviction into condemnation. Confession is our answer.

J. D. Greear says we should see confession as a trip to the spa where we are cleansed, refreshed, revived, not a trip to the woodshed! Some of you may not know about the woodshed. You are blessed!

Blessed are the meek. Meekness is strength under control. We are to trust God and do good, to be single-minded in finding our delight, purpose and meaning in Jesus. This gives us an outlet when life is not fair. We can roll those emotions onto Jesus. Meekness is waiting on God and resting in Him, ready for His Word to move us – not our impatience or our reasoning or pressure from others. Meekness doesn’t return evil for evil or violence for violence. Our default is to be in control. Somehow the illusion of control makes us feel safer. Fighting in this way makes us about as unsafe as we can possibly be. When I’m depending on me, I’m all I’ve got !! Talk about anxiety! We are not in charge, and if we were our lives and the lives of everyone around us would be in jeopardy. We are not nearly wise enough, or loving enough, or merciful enough. Waiting is still not a favorite of mine, but I can say that my greatest blessings have all come with waiting. God’s waiting room – place of blessing.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Righteousness is right relatedness to God and out of that right behavior. As our relationship grows, we want less and less of those things that are not of God. I do want that. I also want life to be easier, more comfortable. In order not to fight this place, I need to come to the place of not my will but Yours – over and over. I have to see this righteousness is a gift and quit trying to be in myself what I can never be. Then I can experience the blessing of amazing grace, fruitful effort, the joy of delighting Him, of walking and talking with Him, of fulfilling my purpose, of fruit that will last!!! I can be full, not empty.

Blessed are the merciful. Being merciful is giving of undeserved blessing or acceptance. The ones who can walk in this are the poor in spirit. They are desperate and hungry and seeking. We fight this when we think we want what we deserve – or that we are not getting what we deserve, or when we find ourselves more condemning than we want to be.

Blessed are the pure in heart. A pure heart is an undivided heart. The new heart He has given us is undivided. Certainly not our default in the flesh. But as we walk in the blessings above, we are walking in the Spirit and more and more living out of an undivided heart. We fight this when we beg for things that feed our divided heart, our idolatries.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Peacemakers bring Shalom – wholeness and harmony. We are part of a divine plan to bring peace to disruption, to push back darkness and establish light. To do this we need to be willing to be in unpeaceful situations. We make peace by dumping our anger, anxiety, and fear at the feet of Jesus. We bring peace by being changed by the gospel and by sharing the gospel. We fight this place of blessing by avoiding situations, by letting our anger, fear, or anxiety rule, by not walking in all the places of blessing above that bring us peace so that we have it to share. We fight it by trying to work it up within us. It only comes from the Prince of Peace. He is willing to give us His peace if we are willing to receive it. How often we think we would just prefer a change of circumstances. But do we really want miss being part of the Divine Plan?!

The Word tells us of many blessed places. Hopefully, as we see them, we will consider whether we are fighting them or seeking them by seeking Him – the place and source of all blessing.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Eph.1:3