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When I was in seminary I served as an intern in a church where one of my responsibilities was to work with the high school youth group. A few months after I began, I was pulled into a conflict between two parents and their daughter. They asked me to meet with them to help with a dispute they were having. I agreed, though deep down I knew I had no experience and could offer little in the way of wisdom or council. As it turned out, they didn’t need a pastor or a counselor, what they needed was a referee. They duked it out in front of me. My head was on a swivel as each member of the family charged the other with their offenses. The thing that struck me most about this intervention was that the parents were telling their daughter everything that was wrong with her. I’m sure they believed this was the best strategy to change her behavior. However, as I listened, what I began to realize was that the daughter was so incredibly frustrated by her parent’s disappointment. It began to become clear to me that she simply wanted to make her parents proud; to hear words of love and affirmation. What she felt was their judgment, what she wanted was their blessing.
When I read the story of Jacob wrestling with God in one of this week’s texts (Genesis 32), I see someone who, more than anything else, also yearned for a blessing. In the midst of a wrestling match in which he was injured and losing, he refused to let go of his opponent until he received the one thing he wanted most; “But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (Gen 32:26).
A number of years ago a book called The Blessing by family counselors Gary Smalley and John Trent told story after story of people who longed to be blessed by the one’s they loved the most. In a society that is hypercritical and offers judgment at every turn, think what a joy it is to be in the presence of someone who makes you feel blessed. Think how awesome it is to walk into a room and feel affirmation and love. I think our kids, our colleagues and our spouses yearn for it.
When I think back to the session I had with that family so many years ago I’ve often wondered if things might have been different if I’d have had the wisdom to put the negativity on hold and encouraged them to find things in each other that brought them blessing. As theologian Matthew Fox has stated in his book Original Blessing, “the forces of fear and pessimism so prevalent in society and religion need to be countered by an increased awareness of awe and goodness.” May we look for that awe and goodness and seek to bless the people with whom we live and work each and every day.
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