I have recently become a reader of Bill Keane’s cartoon, Family Circus. It is modeled after the cartoonist’s own family—his wife Thelma, and their children, Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and P.J.
In a recent scene Billy issues, a huge AH-CHOO sneeze into the face of Dolly. With obvious irritation and anger, Molly yells, “Momma, if somebody sneezes on you, do you hafta’ God bless them? She had heard it so often…people automatically spontaneously responding ‘GOD BLESS YOU” to someone’s sneezing.
It set me to thinking about the whole issue of BLESSING. I say it often to persons with whom I’m talking, Bless you; and I frequently close a note to someone, Bless you. I pray it doesn’t come off casually; I mean it. I am seeking to bless them myself, and I want them to be blessed by others, and especially by God.
Carl Jung is the Swiss psychoanalyst who popularized the term “complex. The notion may be immediately understood when we say a person has an “inferiority complex.” It doesn’t matter how much you praise him; he will feel inferior.
I don’t believe I am stretching it when I say Christians should be the most “blessing people” in the world. At the heart of who we are is the fact that our eternal salvation has come as a gift through Christ, and the presence and power of Christ in our lives is our constant blessing. As I have been writing this, I had a phone call from a friend in Nigeria who has given his life in service to that country. He is now 75 years old and still blessing the people there. He is going to bless me with his presence in Memphis for a few days next month.
It doesn’t have to be that dramatic, you can bless someone with as little as a glance or a smile or a tender touch. You can bless people by how you see and hear and treat them . My friend, Lyn Sweet, expressed it in his unique way, you don’t need to be holy to bless others. In fact, you need to bless others to be holy.
Did I hear an AH-CHOO? Bless you!