Psalm 67:1-2 May God be gracious to us and bless us
    and make his face shine on us—
so that your ways may be known on earth,
    your salvation among all nations.

My first thought, on reading this, was that this is indeed the right motive for asking for blessings. God’s blessings to us should inform the nations of the world of Who and What our God is, the Creator of the universe. My second thought was that this prayer has indeed been answered. God blessed the Jews with Jesus, the promised Messiah, and because of that, the Gospel has indeed gone out to all the nations. That blows my mind! We try to put God and His actions into our own intellectual framework, and it doesn’t work. In line with my second realization from this passage, it hits me that the condition Jesus gave for His return, of the Gospel being preached in all the world, (Matthew 24:14) has indeed been fulfilled, for the most part. The people-groups who have no access to the Gospel are exceedingly few and far between. Right now, the challenge is whether those who have access, such as the Japanese, will actually receive and believe it. For that matter, many in the US, which was explicitly founded on Biblical principles, reject the Gospel. There’s certainly plenty for us to be doing until Christ returns! One of the biggest challenges for all of us, even devout believers, is keeping our thinking and our words and actions in the context of God, recognizing that He is everything and all of our concerns are secondary, if that. Going back to this passage, all the good things we enjoy have meaning only to the degree that we realize and acknowledge that they come from God, and give Him the thanks and praise He deserves. Otherwise, they become traps and snares to us, cutting us off from a right relationship with our Creator. Keeping Him central applies to absolutely every detail of our lives.

This is still a challenge for me, even as long as I have walked with God. Right now I am very emotionally involved in politics, considering the mess in nations around the world at this point. I am also emotionally connected to space exploration, having been interested in it for over 60 years, and I see how politics is interfering with it. I could go on and on listing things I am interested/involved in, but I must approach every one of those in the context of our Creator who made everything. He told me personally that He’s not pleased with a lot of things that are going on in the world, but I know that He’s got the best solution to every issue. I am to approach everything with the question of what God wants to do with it, and trust Him with it whether I see what His plans are or not. When I see things like government flunkies getting in the way of actual relief work after the recent hurricane in the US, for example, I taste the anger of God, I think. However, I’m not to let my emotions control me, but rather let them fuel me to do what God wants of me, which in this case is to pray.

Father, this is a huge issue, encompassing everything in the world! Help me recognize Your plans for me personally, so that I may be faithful in whatever my part might be. Help me indeed feed Your sheep, both those who gather here and those connected by the Internet, so that the Body of Christ may be built up as You desire, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!