Be Blessed

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" ~Matthew 5:8

This weekend I attended the church's youth group, and Mr. Ike, the man who leads along with his wife, spoke about Jesus and the beatitudes. We talked about what it means to really be poor in spirit, merciful, peacemakers, and persecuted. We got the chance to break up into small groups, and I joined a group that mostly had girls of the junior high age. Mariah, one of my housemates, was in charge of that group, and had us all pick one that we wanted to strive to take personally and make it our own. At first, nothing jumped out at me, and I was getting a little nervous that I would not have anything to say when it came my turn going around the circle. I read through all of them again, and BAM, verse 8 jumped out like you wouldn't believe. All of the sudden I remembered all kinds of things that went with this verse, and I actually got a little bit emotional. In school, I remember one professor talking about how we have a vertical relationship with God and a horizontal relationship with others on the earth. If our relationship with God is out of line, those relationships with humans will therefore be thrown off. I think that these two things go hand in hand. If there are things that we are harbouring in our hearts (any sin, whether anger or resentment toward another person, some idol we are clinging onto, a plan that is not God's, etc...), we will not see God clearly. It's like these things are smoke, and when they are inside us, we can't see God through them... not that He isn't there anymore or left us, but that we have clouded our own vision. I think a lot of times we turn it around and blame Him, thinking that it is Him who is "hiding" from us, or not sharing His will with us. This is SO far from the truth! When we keep this "smoke" inside, and don't give it over to Him, of course we can't see through it, but if we breath it out and lay it down at His feet (which never went anywhere), we can then truly and clearly see Him for what He is, our Creator, Master, Provider, Father, and Friend...
That has just been on my heart, and we all made a commitment to really focus on our chosen beatitude this week... I would challenge you to read through the beatitudes in Matthew 5 and choose one for yourself to personalize and strive for!!