Blessings and Curses

We are in the hot lead-up to Christmas and the blessing of these holidays (Thanksgiving included, and the reflections of old year’s end and the hopes of new year’s beginning) are high in our minds. And yet, blessing does not exist in a vacuum. In fact, the blessing of the Christmas story is so rich because the people involved were so aware of the curse - the presence of sin and their personal  experience of its evil effect.

So perhaps, in order to better appreciate the blessing, we ought to more seriously consider the curse. In reading through Deuteronomy this year, I underlined several lines in chapter 28 that vividly capture the consequence of the curse in our lives.

28:34 “so that you are driven mad by the sights that your eyes see.” A lot of those sights these days come via our screens. The news can drive us mad. The predictions by those who don’t have a clue can drive us mad. We listen and watch the wrong things.

28:44 “He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.” We have lost intentionality, and are the captives of earlier choices for which we failed to think and pray, and simply followed what the neighbors are doing. It is impossible to live an authentically Christian life this way.

28:47 “because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things.” The seed sown among thorns gets choked, as do we, by so many concerns, and by so full a schedule, and by so much stuff - and a choked heart and life is bereft of joy and gladness.

28:65 “the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.” This seems to be the description of those who have lost their grip on “faith, hope, and love,” or, perhaps better, have been gripped by something else. A “trembling heart” is one that has lost confidence in the promises of God. “Failing eyes” are those who have lost sight of the hope outlined by the promises of God. A “languishing soul” is one that sits, worrying about self, feeling sorry for self, rather than investing self in the lives of others, as God has invested Himself in us.

Now, if these things, by the grace of God, were to be radically reversed, then we would have, not curse, but blessing - a world in  which Christ is King and we are His joyful servants and subjects, delighted to do His will.