Blessing God and Being Guided

I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me.
-Psalm 16:7 (NLT)

This verse contains a spiritual principle, that we receive counsel or guidance (leading) from God; after we first bless or praise him.  And, our innermost being, or the seat of our emotions, will get it, and fall into line.

We are blessed and are being blessed by God.  It is the state we live in.  We say, "I am so blessed", or, "you are so blessed".  When we give someone our blessing, we are saying, "amen", or "may it go well with you", or more specifically, "I say, may it go well with you".  That is also what is meant when we say, "God bless you", when someone sneezes.

But, what about blessing the Lord?  God does not need our encouragement.  Blessing God, is a lifestyle of being thankful and praising him always.  We do give God permission and we do welcome him and we do make a royal road for the king, with our praise, thanks, and blessings towards God.

So, to bless God or to say, "Lord, I bless you", is right.  Notice that it says, "I will".  It is something you will to do.  It takes an effort.  Blessing God is a gift to give him, just like when we bless people.

We bless God first, then the guidance, instruction, or counsel comes to us.  Our will blessing God, opens the way to our receiving guidance or instruction.  We will thank him for the instruction and it is a circle.  But the circle begins or is started  by God being God, glorious and a blessing in being.  We, then praise God, and the way begins to open to our deepest innermost beings getting instructed, even chastised.

A side note is that it happens at night.  It does not say in your sleep.  But the night is when we sleep, so it can happen in our sleep.  Night is when the lights are off, when the sun is down, and when we do not see as much with our physical eyes.

We can have very good times with people at night, seeing them with candles or oil lamps, and today, with electric lights.  But things slow down at night.  We are getting ready to sleep and we may be up, while others sleep, so things are quieter.

The night is also symbolic of the dormant time, when there is less activity.  Perhaps the psalmist is remarking that in addition to being counseled or guided by God, his own inner man, innermost seat of his emotions aligned his life with the plan of God.

It may be like a chastisement to one's life that is out of alignment with God's plan, or it might be a confirmation from the well of the depths of the heart, saying, "that's true and right".  And we might need it to be night, for the heart to be able to have a voice, because during the day, some of our minds chatter so much, and our eyes and ears constantly take in distractions from what God wants for us and what our hearts can bear witness to.

We follow God with our hearts.  It says, "trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding" (Prov. 3:5).  The only time that God speaks to the mind to explain or get us straight, is when we are in sin, and he says, "come let us reason together; though you sin be as scarlet..."(Isa. 1:18).

We follow God by faith with our heart, which informs our mind.  We don't follow or decide with our minds (1 Cor. 2:14).  Our mind or reason might not think we should worship or praise God.  We might deduce that God does not need it or require it.  But our hearts and continually filled with exuberance towards God and want to praise him continually.

Having the Spirit of God in us, renews our minds.  Renewal of the mind, brings the mind to a place where it can hear God, and renewal of the mind happens when we thank God (Rom. 1:21), and the mind begins to be governed by God's Spirit (Rom. 8:6).

When our minds are in the place of being renewed, we can receive counsel and guidance from God (Rom. 12:1-2).  This is like what Psalm 16:7 is touching on.

We bless God.  At the end of the day, do you take stock of whether you blessed God today?  Bless God before you go to sleep, to cap off your day and kick off your rest.

We bless God throughout our day and we are guided or counseled by God, then we bless God some more.  We bless and are guided and we bless because we are guided.  We have continual thankfulness in our hearts.  And the fruit of the Spirit helps us to be thankful.

In addition, our hearts, that have God's blueprint in them or God's design for each one of us, is unlocked by God, and God's wisdom flows through our hearts to our minds, that are being renewed, and we get night classes or instruction, from the Lord.

So, it began with God.  We are now here and have the opportunity to bless God or praise him.  That's where is starts in our lives.  Our lives are a life of praise and blessing.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

When you bless God, you have come into the place where you can learn, which happens in our hearts.

________________________________
I found the above picture here.

Comments