3 Words on Being a Blessing to Others
Our life and very existence has a purpose, and I want to hit on that purpose today. It sounds so simple but here it is:
We are intended to be a blessing to the world and people who bless the people around us.
Jesus would say it kind of like this…
We ought to be the vehicles that carry and delver God’s blessing — his loving presence, his generous care and his life-giving peace. We ought to be the vehicles that carry and deliver God’s blessing to the rest of the world around us. The Creator of the Universe — the one overseeing the unfolding of human history — has created us and blessed us so that we would be a blessing to others.
And so let’s unpack that a little bit.
What do we mean by being a blessing?
What does this look like in our normal everyday lives?
Here are 3 words to help us with what it means to be a blessing others.
See
Speak
Sacrifice
See
First, we bless others by seeing them.
To truly see someone — to acknowledge their presence and to recognize them — is to give that person a blessing. This is especially true when it is a younger person who looks up to you.
In my work with Unlimited Potential, this is something that we consistently try to remind professional athletes — to embrace the habit of keeping their head up and seeing the people around them. This is obviously something they can do to bless the fans, but a more personal way that they can do this is to truly see and acknowledge the people that they walk by everyday as the enter the stadium and clubhouse — stadium personnel, security, clubhouse staff, grounds crew, etc.
All it takes is to look at people with kindness and gratitude in our eyes (and even better to know them by their name). We can easily bless the people around us by simply acknowledging their presence.
For those of us who are parents, one of the greatest gifts that we can give our children is simply the gift of our undivided attention.
I don’t think any of us need a degree in psychology to understand that our kids are created with this inherent desire to be seen by us.
All you have to do is go to a local playground or ball field, and you will see this need to be seen immediately. Kids will be playing with something or doing something and at the same time constantly looking up to see if their mom or dad is watching them…
“Mom, watch this!”
“Dad, did you see that!?”
We all have a natural desire to want to be seen. It’s just a little more raw and on display in the behavior of children. And when children are not given the recognition that they need, there are other ways to try and get attention. Sometimes getting into trouble is simply a child’s desperate attempt to force someone to see them.
And so, let’s make an effort to truly see the people around us — especially our own children. Let’s put our phones down and pick our heads up. We are blessed by being seen, and we bless others by truly seeing them.
Speak
Next, we bless others by speaking well of them.
Now, this is an obvious one, but we bless others when we express our delight in them. When we look at them and can sincerely say with our body language, the tone of our voice and our words that, “I am glad you are here. Your presence in my life gives me joy and makes my life better.”
And we can do this too in the simplest of ways…
If you’re a parent and you sincerely tell your child, “I enjoyed watching you play today. You make me happy” then you have blessed your child.
If you’re a teacher and you tell a student, “You did a great job on this today” then you have blessed that student.
If you’re a coach and you tell a player, “I loved your effort out there today” then you have blessed your player.
If you’re the head of a company and you tell an employee, “I really appreciate the work that you’re doing and what you bring to the table” then you have blessed your employee.
If you’re eating a restaurant and you tell your waiter or waitress, “Thank you, I really enjoyed sitting at your table today” then you have blessed that waiter or waitress.
This is an easy one to understand so we don’t need much explanation here. But so many times we just leave things unsaid. Either we are too distracted or in too much of a hurry or we simply overlook the power of our body language and our words.
And so, let’s slow down enough to speak life into someone else’s soul. Let’s encourage the people around us with thoughtful words. We are a blessing to others when we speak well of them.
Sacrifice
And lastly, we bless others by sacrificing for them — especially our time for them.
I want to just give you a simple example that comes to mind. And it’s an example I share a lot because of how simple it was but also powerful.
A few years ago, a friend of mine reached out to me for a favor. His 8-year-old nephew had just recently been diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes, and although he was handling it well, it was a discouraging new reality for an active 8-year-old boy to accept.
My friend had heard that a particular outfielder with the Atlanta Braves also had Type-1 diabetes, and so he asked me if I thought this player would be the kind of guy that would sign a ball or send a short video to encourage his nephew. I presented this opportunity to the player, and he was more than happy to do this for my friend’s nephew.
A few weeks went by and I received a text from my friend. It was a video of his nephew opening the autographed baseball and then watching the short video clip of this Braves player personally reaching out to encourage him.
As soon as the short video clip ended, the boy started crying. His parents asked him if he was okay and then asked why he was crying. The 8-year-old boy simply said…
“I’m just so happy.”
My eyes begin to water every time I think about that moment and seeing what a signed ball and a short video can do for an 8-year-old boy. All this player had to do was embrace a slight interruption to his schedule in order to sacrifice a few minutes to be a blessing to someone else.
This 8-year-old boy felt seen. Encouraging words had been spoken to him. And the results of that sacrifice were powerful.
And so, let’s be willing to do the same. We all have our routines and our schedules. We all are busy and seem to always have somewhere to be or something to do. But in the midst of all this hurry and busyness, there are opportunities to stop for a few minutes — to adjust our schedule and our plan — in order to sacrifice some of our time to be a blessing to someone else.
If you read through the Gospels and pay attention to the life of Jesus, you will begin to notice that most of the miracles and healings that he did were moments where he had been interrupted. They weren’t on the schedule.
Most divine appointments are not on our schedules; they are interruptions to what we have planned that day.
Are we willing to sacrifice our schedules for the sake of what God might be up to?
Final Thoughts
Our life and very existence has a purpose: A big part of that purpose is that we are intended to be a blessing to the world and people who bless the people around us.
See
Speak
Sacrifice
We bless others when we…
Truly see them
Speak well of them
And when we sacrifice our time for them
Let’s put our phones down and pick our heads up.
Let’s slow down enough to speak life into someone else’s soul — to encourage them with thoughtful words.
And, in the midst of our full schedules and regular busyness, let’s look for the opportunities to stop for a few minutes in order to sacrifice some of our time to bless someone else — someone who wasn’t even on our mind or on our schedule that day.
