“Have a blessed day!”
Honestly, I was thrown off when the teenage guy serving us our fast food said these words to me. I didn’t know how to respond.
So, I responded with something profound “May you find yourself blessed by our eternal Father and his Son Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit today, ah-men.” (Really it was going to be something awkward like “You too also have a blessed day today, also” but the server had walked away already.)
If he had handed me our lunch and said “Have a good day” I wouldn’t have given it a second thought and simply said “You too.”
“Blessed” seems to mean something different. Something deeper, reverent, otherworldly. Though the high school-aged guy didn’t think about his words nearly as much as I have, he knew it meant something more than “I hope you don’t choke on your fried food.”
So, what does blessed mean? I will answer this way, I know, but then again I don’t know. All I have are pictures, not words. A tree planted by waters whose roots constantly drink deeply of the cool water even during raging dryness. It flourishes through all circumstances. (See Jeremiah 17:7-8) Or Jesus multiplying a meager meal until not only had everyone eaten, but he gave until they were satisfied. (See John 6:11-13)
What I do know for sure is that we have often made “blessed” dryly religious rather than meaningful. We have used that word to sound spiritual rather than to have an encounter with God’s flourishing Spirit.
In Matthew 5, Jesus starts off his sermon about his coming Kingdom with the words “Blessed are the…” He is both making a promise and describing a condition of life. To be blessed is to have a life of the fullest good. To be blessed means to experience of life of flourishing instead of languishing. To be blessed means to be so connected to the person of Jesus that all of his “blessed-ness” flows into all of our lives.
Yeah, I still don’t full know what that means. All I know is that I don’t want to be left out of that.
So, have a blessed day. Have a blessed life. Have a blessed eternity. Don’t settle for less because Jesus doesn’t offer less. He welcomes us into a life with him that is not nearly meager, but defined by Jesus’ own lavish nature to love us well.