Choosing to Live in the Land of the Blessing

This world is damned; and instinctively we all know it. We admit it all the time: "Damned truck!" "Damned job!" "Damned situation!" We are all damned, and we cannot seem to wait to get in on the judging: "Damn him!" "That damned SOB!" I am a trucker most of the time, and I hear it every day. Either the truck is damned, the loader is damned, the sugar beets are damned, our employer is damned, the weather is damned; I do not think that there is a situation or an entity on the face of the earth that has been justly condemned by my fellows. Even Mother Nature is damned. Oh, and of course, God is damned; or is it the other way around? Is it that God ultimately is the one that we want to do all of this damning.

Several years ago, I got a bit fed up with all of the damning. After all, damning is depressing. If everything is damned, how can one be productive? How can one experience any joy? How can one find any deep meaning and purpose? So, in the midst of a whole host of damning, I called out on my two-way radio soimething like this, "You know, God blesses things also. And I would much rather live in a blessed world than in a damned world any day of the week."

Dead silence. It killed the conversation for over an hour. I think that people were thinking. Either that or they were stunned. Most of them likely didn't know what to think. They had probably never realized what they were actually saying; after all, damn is just an interjection. It is used for emphasis, to say something like, "This is not just sort of bad, but it is really bad!" Or, that person is really worthless -- what we do not realize that we are saying is that they are so worthless, we wish God would terminate them right here and now, and that He would send them to hell.

I would like to be a person of blessing rather than damning. I was just thinking about the Beatitudes, "Blessed are you . . ." In the law, there are the curses, and there are the blessings. I would like to live in the blessings. I am tired of this damned world, where things break down, where you cannot get ahead, where corruptiion eventually ruins everything, and where the Second Law of Thermodynamics always comes into play. So, I have decided to live in the land of the blessing, by honoring God, by living in a manner pleasing to Him, by trusting Christ to save me from all of the damnable destructiveness of the world in which I am living.

Does it change the world? Not that much, I suppose. But it sure does change my orientation to the world. It helps me to understand that God has ordered this world for a purpose, to teach me to trust Him, and to call upon Him for the solution to my every need. You have this opportunity too; you can live in a damned world, or in a blessed one; that is, as long as you are willing to submit your life entirely to Christ. After all, He is the source of blessing; He is the Blessing itself.

So, have a blessed day, and stop living in this damned world that is going to hell in a handbasket.