91 - What Does It Really Mean to Be Blessed?

We often say “I’m blessed”—but what do we really mean by that? In this episode, we challenge the common idea that blessing simply means good or positive circumstances, and instead explore a more biblical definition—what is truly profitable for our souls, even when life is difficult. 

Walking through James 1 and Romans 8:28, we unpack how trials, loss, and hardship can still serve a purpose in shaping our faith. From Solomon and David to Israel and the bronze serpent, we examine how blessings can turn into curses—or reveal themselves over time—depending on our attitude, stewardship, and response to God.

At the core, this episode reframes blessing not as what we receive but as how God uses every experience to draw us closer to Him. If you’ve ever wrestled with hardship, comparison, or understanding God’s purpose in your life, this conversation will challenge how you see both trials and blessings.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Hymn Riff

Nate 0:05

Welcome to the Exhorter Podcast, where we aim to stir up love and good works with bite-sized biblical discussion. I think it's Kyle who has our topic for the day. Kyle, what are we going to be discussing this afternoon?

Kyle 0:19

Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy that you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly, and you will be singing as the days go by. So count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings and see what God hath done. Count your many blessings, name them one by one, see what God hath done. So the Wolf Shatner version. That's all. Count your blessings. Here you go. Name them one. Five. One. Yeah, there's the there's the Shatner version of that.

Nate 0:54

Very nice.

Kyle 0:55

Uh I I want to go to something very simple. I think the idea of blessings is one of the most commonly used words in Christian vernacular. But I think it's healthy from time to time for us to just ask the basic question: what do we mean when we say blessing? Or I'm blessed? So it's a word we use very often, but sometimes we don't stop and think about uh really what this word means. So without looking into any dictionaries or Bible word studies, just what do you guys when you think of that word bless or blessing, how do you define a blessing when you're told to count your blessings? What constitutes a blessing from God?

Nate 1:46

All of the good things in my life.

Kyle 1:48

Good things in your life.

Jon 1:49

Certain blessings happen in your life that are good for you that maybe aren't good things in and of themselves, or you don't think that they're good when they're happening, and they end up being blessings. So that's why I don't think of them as just positive things. I think them as profitable things for you. Things that profitable things. Things that are profitable for you. Because it sometimes blessings are in disguise, right? And we don't always see that when they're happening.

Nate 2:11

Oh, yeah. We may not count it a blessing today, but it could be a blessing tomorrow.

Kyle 2:16

Yeah, because we might look at something, if we just define it simply as good things. Well, does that mean someone that doesn't have all the good things as me is not blessed, or that they are not in God's favor? Uh, or or what if I'm blessed one day by that definition, but the next day it it turns out very poorly? Is is now God dissatisfied with me in some regard. Those are some of the the problems that come up when we try to define these terms and think about well, how okay, let's apply that to every situation.

Jon 2:50

This is this we talked about this, I think, in just conversations similar to the when we talk about providence and when you one blessing is to you, but maybe not for someone else. And I give like an example of uh I was went through an intersection and um I just missed getting side sideswiped by someone and they hit someone behind me. Is my blessing a curse on them? You know, that it happened to me and not them. And the way that you look at blessings and providences in through the physical light, I think can kind of undermine them. And it's kind of like you're looking um hindsight bias, you're looking after something and then labeling it with it's whether a blessing or not, you there will be situations in life that you think, okay, if it's that's a blessing to me, is that not a blessing for someone else? And that's why I think like it's a little easier for me to understand blessings as what's profitable for me. And I look at James and I look at the James 1. I think the idea that even struggles in life can be blessings to me, and because there's profit, profitable things that can come of that. Yeah. And it's a little easier if, yeah, you don't look at all blessings and label them as positive or good because it can then conflate some weird feelings when they're not good for other people, and other people aren't having blessings by their by their labeling, right? When when bad things happen to other people, they don't see those as blessings, and so why is everyone else being blessed? I'm afraid that people will struggle in life and it will they'll question their faith because of blessings are not blessings and providence and things like that.

Kyle 4:23

So to be clear, you referenced James chapter 1, verse 2. My brethren, count it all joy, or some translations say consider it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, and then patience when it has its perfect work leads to you being complete, lacking in nothing. Uh, so it is looking to the end. And I I like that as a starting point for this conversation because as I've examined this from different angles and tried to reconsider um I using these words properly, am I using the concept of a blessing biblically? Uh I I've tried to look at it from all different angles, and that's what I keep coming back to is there's the factor of of how I respond to it. My attitude towards it will in many ways determine whether I could actually count this thing a blessing or not. Because um, as you pointed out, what what might be a blessing for me might be a curse for someone else.

Jon 5:26

Every breath is a blessing. So everything that happens to you in life would be a blessing. So to what how it is somewhat of your perspective where we are talking about that perspective of things in life and whether you see them as blessings or not.

Kyle 5:40

Yeah, and this does get into some Job territory too. If we start thinking that in terms of good things, I got the job I wanted, I got approved for the home loan, and I got my dream house, or I got the car I wanted, or um I went to the doctor and and took all these screenings, and I my health is 100% clear and you know, no health issues, or things like that. Like if we start thinking in terms of physical things and associating that with God's favor, then again, the person that got a cancer diagnosis, or uh they have an expensive uh problem with their with their teeth uh that they have to get fixed, or they got their car repoed, or they didn't get approved for the home, or they got fired from their job. Like, is that assuming that they're somehow sinful and God is punishing them? That gets into some job territory.

Jon 6:33

Yeah, and we look at the world through worldly eyes sometimes in that way. If I if I went out there and got a job where I had a 100%, 200% income raise, I would think that is an amazing blessing from God. Well, what if it demanded a hundred percent more of my time away from my family and and you know, my devotion to God, my time for the kingdom was diminished somewhere.

Kyle 6:56

Can you guys think of any examples in the Bible where uh what we might just without overthinking it, look at something as, well, that's a blessing, but that it became a curse for for somebody. Can you guys think of any stories like that in the Bible? Well, my first thought was Solomon. Because you asked for wisdom and not for riches and prosperity and victory over your enemies, I'll give you wisdom and I'll give you those things too.

Nate 7:21

And then it was his his riches and maybe his pride that that kind of led to his downfall. So maybe that blessing uh kind of turned into not so blessing in the end. Which leads to another question Is a blessing today always a blessing? Is it also a blessing tomorrow, you know?

Kyle 7:37

Well, and and I I would my first thought was to go back a uh rung in the family tree to David. Yeah.

Nate 7:42

Yeah.

Kyle 7:43

Taken from obscurity, and and you you would see both sides of this coin. You you look at a curse and him being anointed king, but now on the run for his life and living in the wilderness and under constant threat of being killed by Saul. Um was that was that a curse? Was that a sign of God's disfavor? And then on the on the flip side, when he was anointed king and all his enemies, and he was the most military from a military standpoint, the most successful king at settling the borders, and so he expanded the kingdom to its farthest reaches and secured the throne, and all twelve tribes were under one crown, and that was just such a brief period of their history before it split up. Was that a blessing? And and I want to say that yes, that is a blessing. That is something, and if we define blessing as most general term, we would think just favor from God. And we know that God granted him that success over his enemies, but did that become a curse for David? He became proud, took a census, numbered the people. He that whole story with that Sheba, and he wasn't taking ownership of his sins until Nathan confronted him. And so the ease and comfort and success that God gave him, which would which would be a blessing in one perspective, because of his proud attitude and response towards it, became a negative thing in his life.

Jon 9:10

And what are your thoughts on Samson? Yeah, I just I was just thinking Samson, because I think if you look at it, he had like sewerpowers, dude. What what kid growing up didn't look at Samson as, man, this guy was amazing. He was so strong and everything. And and physically that would seem to be an amazing blessing that he had in his life, but at the end of the day, um, it probably drew more people into his life that were not uh righteous, you know, uh towards God. And it brought more questionable decisions to his life. I don't know, I just see him as someone who was gifted something that was amazing, and uh, by all means, it might have seemed like a blessing, but you could have also looked at it as a curse. In and of itself, his life wasn't necessarily better because of his strength. Do even though it was a blessing by God.

Stewardship Turns Gifts Into Good

Nate 9:58

Do blessings not come with some consequences or things that we may not like? So for instance, my uh I've talked to my wife about this, you know, when we were younger before we met each other, we prayed that we would find, you know, a godly spouse and and um and then my wife found me and she says that that was a blessing, but does that, you know, I'm not perfect. So so that blessing of finding me and now we're married, did that also come with some consequences? Yeah, you know, I I'm I'm not a perfect person. I've got some some baggage to deal with. So that idea, does that go for other blessings too? That perhaps God does extend his favor, but that favor comes with some uh responsibility and some uh maintenance and some difficulties. I think blessing comes with expectation.

Trials That Become Profit

Kyle 10:46

That that when God blesses us in a visible or material way, there is an expectation that we will not become conceited or we will not become selfish, that we will that we will, as a steward, look at it as not favor for me, but as something that maybe I enjoy, but ultimately becomes something that is dedicated to God. And I think that's that gets back to the heart of the issue for me is our response and attitude towards it. I mean, when when God rescued uh the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage, uh he made it after the after the plague so that the Egyptians were giving all of their gold and jewelry and and wealth to Israel, paying them to leave. And then they took that money and melted it down to a golden calf. And so we know that God is directly responsible for them benefiting in a in a very material way with all the gold, but their response became a curse for them. And same with the bronze serpent in Numbers chapter, was it Numbers chapter 21? Uh, where I find it to be one of the more humorous stories, but God sends uh says uh what do you say, fiery serpents, which I maybe just describes the burn of if you get bit by one, but I like to I'd like to imagine actual fire breathing snakes. That's more funny. Mini dragons. Uh yeah, and uh like like Mushu from Mulan. Uh and and so it they cry out for help, and and God's like, yeah, okay, okay, um, I'll I'll rescue you from your own stupidity. Moses, make a bronze serpent, put it up on a standard. People come look to it if they get bit, they'll survive. Yeah. But yet, uh 2 Kings chapter 18 records that some 700 years later, Hezekiah is purging the land of its idols, and he talks about Nehushtan. They took the serpent and turned it into something they worshipped, and it's something that uh one of the few righteous kings had to purge out of the land. So uh time and time again, you see the idea that that blessings can become a curse, and John already alluded to the fact that the opposite is true sometimes. What you might look at as a curse uh really turns out for a blessing. That sometimes things aren't going your way, but you just can't see the end of the story or see how it it leads to your profit.

Jon 13:00

I always look back at COVID. Most people don't look at it the way I did, but I always look back at it and go, kind of a little nostalgic point there where I actually, there's parts about it I enjoyed. And I'm saying that having lost two grandparents and a father in the in the year of COVID, but I always look back at that time thinking of how focused we were on trying to worship when everyone told us not to, and how focused we were on just being so grateful for the small, meager things in life that we had in stock and then we could get from the stores. And it just it was such a um that whole time was such a gift of mindfulness and of of looking at your blessings and values. That's a struggle for lots of people and a struggle in life. But in a world where we aren't dragged out of our house and persecuted for being Christians, I sometimes think a little struggle in life is positive for our faith. And and so it that's why I really think that uh accounting for your blessings is is a thought experiment and it's the thought process. It's literally thinking about um how you're going to interpret what perspective you're gonna have on just the situations of all life, knowing that God gives you life and in your lungs and things in this life, and how you choose to look at them, they're all blessings to us. Everything can be a blessing to us. With the right attitude, with the right attitude. Yeah, with the right attitude.

Nate 14:30

That's kind of what Romans 8 28 says. We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose. In all things, uh, God works for the good of those who love him. Really difficult things happen in life that we might not look at and say, Well, that was a blessing. So-and-so passed away. Well, that was well, no, that's not necessarily the case. But is there good that came from that? Perhaps, perhaps someone close to you passed and it made you think about your life, and now you are reading your Bible daily and praying more and more focused on spiritual things. Well, is it good that you know so-and-so passed? Well, not necessarily, but did something good come of it?

Jon 15:12

Yeah, absolutely. I and sometimes I look at losing my parents as a challenge to make me uh really focus in on what was my what's my faith, what's uh inherited. I don't have some sort of uh patriotical person I can look to all the time. I have to be that for my family too. So now I gotta be more focused on my walk. I do think it does matter how you look at it, but then I think naturally there's a question that pops up when let's say there is a job opportunity and I look at it. How do I know it's a blessing? Like, what if it's a curse? And then maybe it throws you into this world of indecision. And I think that maybe that's how you approach things in life really gets you thinking about what you value and what are the things that are important to you, and then using that as a kind of a checklist and a ruler to see those things.

Kyle 16:04

Go into any situation with the attitude of stewardship.

Jon 16:07

Yeah.

Kyle 16:08

Is this on the surface appears to be a blessing, but I won't look at it as primarily something that benefits me, but something that I will use to the benefit of others and to the glory of God. I think if you come into it with that attitude, uh you'll find a lot more value in what we would consider to be blessings. And and to your point, Nate, I mean, it is challenging when one person loses seemingly much more than another person, or one person has much more adversity than another person. That that sounds right when you talk about seeing a value, some good things came from a bad uh experience. Uh but it's it it's challenging when we when we compare notes with other people, and that's where it really becomes a challenge.

Jon 16:54

I've heard people doing that like just in the hallways at work where someone is someone lost a loved one or something like this, and other people are like my father or something struggled in in his last days, and and you hear that comparison a lot. And and sometimes I've I've kind of had to check myself in that too. It's just like, am I um emotionally, you know, uh stunted and do I have the empathy for other people because I've gone through other things. Do I check, do I measure and say, well, I mean, your your father was 95. That's kind of expected. You know, do I do I do I compare, get into that comparison trap? We've had podcasts about comparison trap.

Kyle 17:35

It's just a it's just a dog or a cat or a family. Exactly.

Jon 17:38

But then again, everyone's experience is super emotionally and personal to them. And I think that empathetically for my daughter losing her cat was is has has been the most traumatic thing.

Kyle 17:51

The most tragic thing in her life up to this point. Yeah.

Jon 17:53

And so you it takes that empathy and that grace to look at everyone's situation and say, even if they don't see that as a blessing yet, um, our encouragement is to pray to God and to seek that perspective, you know, and find and ask the Lord, where's the blessing in this? Um, I don't think that that's wrong. It's very Job-like to sit back and lament in sometimes and and to look for that blessing and to be asking for God, not asking your friends, you know, like Job, not not looking for it in other places, but focusing in on where that blessing is going to come from, which is God.

What Bless Means In Scripture

Kyle 18:30

Well, and when James, I'm I'm a firm believer that when James says count it all joy or consider it all joy, that consider to me means thoughtful contemplation and implies the passage of time, that that we have to be comfortable with discomfort and put our faith in God uh for an answer that we might not yet see. Um now this might be helpful too, to just talk a little bit about where we get the the words blessing in the Bible, because uh in in the Hebrew and the Greek, uh both testaments, there's two words that are primarily, not exclusively, but primarily translated as bless in our English Bibles that have some overlap but are subtly different as well. So in in the Old Testament Hebrew, um, barak is one of the most common words. That's the root of it. And so there's different derivatives of that word all throughout the Old Testament, uh, which often means to praise, congratulate, or salute. Or it can even mean a curse, which I think, if I'm not mistaken, that's what Job's wife says, you know, curse God and die. Well, literally it means bless God and die, but that would be more like a, you know, like saluting and you know, sarcastic, like thanks a lot, God. So it's it's really a curse, but the word actually means bless in the sense of like a salute. And so that's where it's like you give a blessing for someone, and in the New Testament, I think the word that probably correlates to that best would be the word eulogio, or we would say eulogy or you googly. Um an amazing you googalizer, yeah. And so, and that's where we get the word eulogy, it focuses more on the idea of good words or a good report. Um, so we could give a blessing to someone or blessing over the food. So, yeah, blessing carries with it that idea of of an expression of goodwill or a salute or a uh a desiring of good fortune for someone. But I think when we look more at the Hebrew word esher or the Greek word makarios, that's a little closer to what we probably mean when we talk about blessing. And they're often directly connected to the concept of happiness. Now that that's where it gets a little tricky, and that's where I think sometimes we we look at things, material things, and if we look at that as a source of contentment or security, I think that's where we get some of the struggles with with understanding blessing.

Jon 20:57

But you when you get back to the when you're talking about blessing, offering a blessing for meals and stuff, we're not asking necessarily for something, we're having an attitude of thanks. It makes a lot more sense that we're putting on a perspective, we're putting on gratitude in that sense. We're not the food's already there, you know, like we're not asking for more food necessarily, but um I mean I mean you may be blessed that's not gonna give you food poisoning. Uh, but that's more of an attitude adjustment, you know?

Kyle 21:27

But I think the idea that we need to connect here is that the happiness that's at the root of these words needs to be connected to, must be joined with God Himself as the object or the source of our contentment or happiness.

Jon 21:45

Not the thing.

Blessed Means God Centered Contentment

Kyle 21:46

And that's I think that's the mistake, is we often seek for the gifts rather than seeking relationship with the gift giver, rather than seeing the blessing as him himself. So and let Illustrate this with a few scriptures here. So Romans chapter 4, verses 7 and 8. Now, this is a quote from Psalm 32, so it's really encompassed in both testaments. That's why I start with this one. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds, and this is more the idea, the word that implies more of the happiness. You're happy, you're content. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. And so that that carries with it begins with our trust in Jesus. We're blessed because of the relationship we have with God. And so in the Old Testament, Psalm 84 says, Blessed is the one who trusts in him. Psalm 34, Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Sometimes it's even more challenging, too. Like, blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach your law. That's from Psalm 94. So we look at that, the blessing is not in that something bad happened. The blessing is not what was done. The blessing is in the net result. Or as you talked about earlier, John, I think to borrow your phrase is in the prophet. But that starts with our perspective. We have to see it that way and connect good and bad experiences to God directly.

Jon 23:23

Yeah, and that's why I love James 1 as that. Seeing everything as profitable.

Kyle 23:27

Well, and the Beatitudes, specifically the ones recorded in Luke 6. Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. So those are all we consider it negative things, but he says, blessed, happy, content. You because you regard them as a positive because you have something in God that uh transcends earthly experience or earthly woes. Imagine a world where Imagine a world.

Suffering And The Promise Of Blessing

Jon 24:03

Imagine a world where no matter what happened to you, good or bad situations, trials, anything in life, you had a hopeful, positive gratitude towards God in all things that ever happened to you. Your mindset was unshakable. You were singularly focused on the reward. And imagine that. That makes me like so hopeful just thinking about that. That we have that capacity and the lack of fear that I would have at the unknown in the future of any scenario and situation. I know that's gonna happen, and I know that's gonna be a struggle in life, but that I can have that perspective and that that feeling of um unshakable trust and faith in God. Like, I mean, that's that is a blessing right there. Being able to have that attitude. We will have that attitude, and God gives us that attitude no matter what happens to you in this life, you can still have that attitude and that hopefulness.

Kyle 25:09

Well, and I I want to share a quote here from an article on the gospelcoalition.org from Sarah Phillips. I don't know anything about her really, but I really like the way she sums this up here. Uh, blessing, why must it be through suffering? Isn't there an easier route to blessing? Sadly, left to ourselves, our hearts are stubborn and cold, and our natural inclination is to try to do everything in our own strength, to walk our own way, to be independent from God. We look for love, security, and happiness in all the wrong places, but God longs for us to find it in him, to lean on him and do things in his strength. So we mustn't be indignant when he leads us down a rocky path. We will not take refuge in him unless we learn that our health, relationships, or finances are not reliable refuges for us. We won't learn to seek him with our whole heart until we realize that only he can truly satisfy us. He is the great blessing. And experiencing his presence and tasting his love often happens on a deeper level through difficulty. And so that's where we make the mistake of pursuing the gifts rather than the blessing is God Himself. And and so, you know, maybe one final passage that comes to my mind would be Acts chapter 3, um, beginning in verse 25. You are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So God promised a blessing to all the earth. Now it's explained in verse 26. To you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities. So Jesus turning us away from our iniquities is how God intends to fulfill that promise to bless the whole earth. Now, what does that look like? Turning me away from my sins. Some of that by learning the hard way, you know, don't touch the stove, we have to burn your hand to learn that lesson. I did. So I I just I feel like we there's so much more to talk about on this on this topic here, but I just I kept coming back to that idea that a lot of it just r depends on my response to adversity, to to trying to see, like Joseph, people might mean it for evil, and I might experience more than what I would say, quote unquote, my fair share of adversity. But I I need to be humble enough to try and see, God, what are you trying to do in my life? What are you trying to draw out of me? How are you trying to shape me through this crucible? And I might I have to be humble enough to acknowledge that I might not see, I don't have the prescience to see the end of this story. Uh neither did Joseph. But he simply regarded things as a blessing from God and used his abilities to further God's glory and magnify God. And so we have to look at our blessings, not so much in the material sense, that, well, it is a blessing, and and children are a blessing, and family is a blessing, and uh money and security can be a blessing. With the wrong attitude, those things can become a curse as well. And so we have to give all things to God. And I think, like Job, we have to look to God as our comfort. And that's what Job said. Is it wasn't Job didn't find comfort when God restored everything to him. He found comfort by seeing that God hadn't abandoned him and that God is God. Now I see you. I've heard about you with the here, but now I see you with the seeing of the eye.

Jon 28:50

Well, Kyle, thank you so much for this topic. And you're right, I don't think this is the last look at the idea of blessings. Uh, actually, I would encourage you all listening to reach out to us, please, and in the comments, or just uh message us and let us know. Are there other discussions and other points that you'd like to hear or you you want to talk about? Um, maybe you need a Bible study and you'd like to reach out to Kyle here and we or Name, we can set those up. But in general, if if there's um struggles in your life and it's hard to find those blessings, please reach out and let us know. And we'd love to be there for you in any way we can. We hope that God opens all of our hearts and eyes to seeing a perspective of blessing in all that we have, and we'll continue to thrive and on our walk.

Kyle 29:34

Just remember, God uses experiences in your life, both pleasant and sometimes unpleasant experiences, to turn you away from your sin. That was how we intended to bless the world.

Nate 29:51

Welcome to the Exorder Podcast, where we aim to stir up love and good works with bike si bike-sized? The size of a bike. They're actually they're medium, right? Not too big, not too small. With bite-sized biblical discussions. Can you do that again? Do you want me to do that? Yes, please.