I read a story the other day about a little boy who had a so-call sneezing frenzy at a family gathering. The first time he sneezed his mother shouted – “bless you!” Well, the boy took the liberty to sneeze five other times with his mom shouting “bless you!” each time he sneezed. At about the fifth time, the mother said to him,”Son you are pushing it!” He turned to her and said, mom, “I’m just trying to be really blessed!”

Most of us know that the custom of saying God bless you after a sneeze comes from an old superstition that says you expel demons in sneezing. But no matter what your understanding is about the subject, (by the way this is not about whether we should say God bless you or not when somebody sneezes), we have somehow lost the true meaning of the phrase – God bless you or blessings for short. For most people it’s just something polite to say when a person sneezes. But what does it truly look like when God blesses you?

The true biblical meaning of the word blessing is – to say something good about someone. The word blessing carries creative powers and enabling grace when spoken by God ( Deuteronomy 8:18; Proverbs 10:22; Hosea 2:8). It is God releasing His creative power to bring into being what He desires for you.

I find it interesting that whenever God spoke a promise or whenever He told somebody to go do something, He always blessed them beforehand, giving them the ability to get the job done.

To Adam – Genesis 1:28;

To Noah – Genesis 9:1

To Abraham – Genesis 8:4

To us – Galatians 3:14

To the disciples – Matthew 14:13-21

I don’t think we should run after the blessings of the Lord. I think we should run after the one who is able to cause all grace to abound toward us. I think we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all God’s blessings we be given to us. And never forget:

It is the blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22