A number of years ago, it was very common for people to tag their social media posts with #blessed. And it was used when you feel blessed, when you got something that you really really want, or even just unexpected good news that gave you joy. For a while, it was even used by Christians as a way to say that these were blessings from God. What was interesting, however, is that this hashtag #blessed was nearly never used when something that society perceived as bad happened.
In other words, #blessed was used to acknowledge the Father of lights who gives only good and perfect gifts (James 1:17)—but only when the gifts received were what we perceived as good and perfect. But the Bible tells us who the blessed are—the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted, insulted and slandered for the sake of God (Matthew 5:3-12). Society would seldom call these people blessed; much less recognise them as recipients of God’s good and perfect gifts. Yet God calls them blessed, and they have received God’s good and perfect gifts.
You see, these people are God’s people. That’s the first and most important gift that God has given them—that of belonging to Him. That’s why they’re called blessed. And the second gift that God has given to them is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who enables and empowers them to fully and truly become the people of God, imbued with His characteristics. These people, those who believe and trust in God, Christians—they are blessed because God has made them His people both in name and from the inside out. That’s what it means to be blessed. And because we who are God’s people are blessed, we see these characteristics of God’s people – we see being poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, mercy, purity in heart, peacemaking, being persecuted and insulted and slandered – we see all these as signs of blessing because it means that the world recognises us for who we are, the world recognises us as God’s people. We don’t seek these for their own sake, but we seek these because these are signs that we have become more and more aligned with the God we worship. They are signs of being #blessed.