A Reflection on "Blessed Be Your Name"

I think too often I sing this song without thinking of the significance of the words. I mean, would I still bless God if things (especially good things) are taken away from me?

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

So true!! I have so much here. Access to good healthcare and trained doctors. Access to education. I am safe when I drive, I am safe when I walk - I don't need to worry about kidnapping, robbery, or rape. I have family and friends nearby.

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

I think different people may have different wilderness. Mine was/is the last three months - coming back here and struggling with finding community, with finding a place to serve, with finding, (wait for it) REST. God is still good, no matter what is going on.

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

What is blessing? I don't think it means that it is something that is, in its experience, good. I think it can also be struggle. Because through struggle we are brought closer to God. When that darkness comes, we can call on the name of the Lord.

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Bless: to extol as holy, to bestow good upon. God IS HOLY, HE IS GOOD. So often I define Him by my experience or my feelings of Him. The truth is, God is good, no matter what I am experiencing. He remains the same: yesterday, today, forever.

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

It's always seems easier to sing praise as you walk through the color-rich trees, as you hear the leaves crunch under your feet, and as you see the sun filter down through the branches. WHY?

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

God's name is to be raised up through the suffering in our lives. When I am weak, He is made strong. The offering to Him of ourselves in weakness and in strength is the greatest way of blessing His Name. Blessing someone does not just occur with words.

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

I need to ask God to see His blessings. We have everything so "set up" here. His work in my life sometimes seems harder to "discover." In Honduras, SOMETHING would always happen when I went out: either I didn't understand fully because of the language barrier, breaks on the car would go, I would get yelled at, laughed at, hassled. Every day I really experienced his protection and His care because it was NEEDED because things were not "in place." Here things are "in place" and I think we have lost the ability to thank God for those things.

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

This part is the hardest to write - because I felt like Honduras, with all its struggles still was good. It was given to me and now it has been taken away. I know without a doubt how much I am meant to be here - and we can be very happy when things are taken away from us that are hard to deal with. But how do you deal with it when GOOD things are taken? Ask anyone who has health problems, who has lost someone. God has His purposes - we need to ask to see them. But first we need to trust and remember who HE IS for then we will BLESS HIS NAME.