The Beaming Blessing

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“If physical objects please you, praise God for them, but turn back your love to their Creator, lest, in those things which please you, you displease him.” 

~Confessions by St. Augustine (354-430), bishop in North Africa

“But the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise… I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.”

~C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

“If a psalm was ever written round the promises to Abraham that he would be both blessed and made a blessing, it could well have been such as this.”

~ Derek Kidner, Psalms

“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.”

~ “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” by William Cowper

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 67 (ESV)

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us

  and make his face to shine upon us, Selah

2 that your way may be known on earth,

  your saving power among all nations.

3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;

  let all the peoples praise you!

4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,

  for you judge the peoples with equity

  and guide the nations upon earth. Selah

5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;

  let all the peoples praise you!

6 The earth has yielded its increase;

  God, our God, shall bless us.

7 God shall bless us;

  let all the ends of the earth fear him!