What does it mean to be blessed?  In the biblical sense, blessing means obtaining the favor of God.  When God blesses you that means that God declares by God’s creative word that you have found favor with God.  The good things we see or obtain or experience, the good fruit we bear, all of that is a result of the blessing.  The thing itself is not your blessing; it is the tangible result of the blessing declared by God.

Sometimes God may declare that we are blessed, but when we look around, it doesn’t necessarily appear so. Outside of simply being alive, we may not see any sign of blessing.  If you can understand the difference between God’s declaration of blessing and the tangible results of God’s declaration, this truth can help you make it through these dry seasons of your life.

And that’s what I want to talk to you about today.  How do you believe God and cling to the claim that you’re blessed when things don’t seem to be going right in your life?  See, when everything is going good, it’s easy to say, “God is good” and “I’m blessed!”  But how do you hold on to God’s promise of blessing when you’re going through a dry season?

We’ve all heard the story about King Midas…everything he touched turned to gold.  That happens in a lot of our lives.  We have a time, a season when all that we do turns to gold.  You’ve heard the term “golden” to refer to a person who seems to be able to do no wrong.  Something is “golden” when “it’s all good”, it comes out right, it brings forth fruit.

When you’re “golden” you can see the hand of God working in your life.  It’s almost like God is your personal valet, walking right in front of you, just clearing the path as you go.  You get to a door and it opens, all you have to do is walk through it.  It’s effortless.  You come to a window, you look out and the sun is shining, the birds are singing, God is in heaven and all is right with the world.  Life is great, you’re smiling, you feel good, and everything is coming up roses.

You’re bearing much fruit…you’re golden.

And then one day you hit a snag.  It just seems to happen overnight.  At first, you think it’s just a fluke, it will pass and everything will get back to normal.  You didn’t get that raise, you didn’t get that job, in fact, you lost your job.  Your children are in trouble, your marriage is in trouble, your finances are in trouble, your ministry is fruitless, your health is failing, loved ones are dying. Nothing you do is prospering.  Nothing is bearing fruit. You have lost your touch.  Instead of gold, everything you touch turns to mud.  You wake up and find yourself in a dry season.  God doesn’t seem to be clearing the way anymore.  In fact, God allows you to be defeated time and time again.  Your fruit has dried up!

How do you hold on to the promises of God in a dry season?  When you find yourself in a barren place where nothing grows, how do you wait on God, how do you trust in God?  Well, I’m here to tell you that if God has declared that you are blessed, then blessings will come.

Luke reminds us by these examples of blessedness that he cites that sometimes church, in order to keep sight of the prize, to claim your blessings, you have to rise up above your circumstances.  Luke says don’t worry if you weep now, you’ll laugh later.  Don’t worry if men persecute you now, you will have the last laugh.  You can’t stay down here and wallow in self-pity and moan about what’s going on in your life.  Get your eyes off your circumstances and fix your eyes on God.  When the enemy launches an attack on you, pray your victory in the Lord.  When all manner of evil rises up against you, fall on your knees and pray to your God.  Live your life with your eyes on the promise and remember that you are blessed!

When God says you’re blessed, that means that God has already spoken it into being.  My Bible says God is not a man, that He should lie.  God has a plan for your life and things will unfold according to plan when you walk with God.  That means that it happens when God says it happens, not before and not after.  That means that no man can stand in the way of the will and purpose of God. In your dry season, when nothing you do seems to be fruitful, remember, God has a plan.  Ephesians 3:20 says that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. You can’t even imagine what God has in store for you! Habakkuk 1:5 says you will be astounded by the work God is doing.  But you must trust God to bring it to past.

Luke contrasts the instruction on blessing with warnings of woe.  Woe to them who laugh now, who are rich now, who are full now, by and by, they’ll get theirs!

Does this mean that God does not want us to do well, to have things, to prosper?  No, it does not!  Jesus said he came that you may have life and have it more abundantly.  Luke is warning against idolatry.  Don’t let your life’s pursuit become a pursuit of temporal reward. Seek after the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.  But when these things become your focus, your reason for being, when you live for what you can accomplish materially, Luke warns that you have your reward in the temporal.  If that’s all you want, that’s all you get.  Because by chasing after temporal things, you are putting your trust in humankind and not in God.  Jeremiah says this causes you to turn away from God.  You are trusting in mere mortals.  And so your reward is whatever you are able to muster for yourself in this life.  Luke says they are laughing now, but they will weep and mourn later.  But if you want to experience true blessing, Jeremiah says, put your trust in God.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is in the Lord.”

Now I know it’s easy to trust God when things are going well. But in a dry season, when you can’t see your way…when you toss and turn in the night because your anxiety won’t let you rest…when every prayer you send up seems to ricochet off the ceiling and you feel utterly alone, when you feel like God has abandoned you…in a dry season, it’s hard to trust, church.  But if you think about in whom you’re trusting, you’ll make it through the dry season.

Jeremiah could say this with confidence because he knew in whom he was trusting.  Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet”.  He lamented over his people Israel and how they sinned and turned away from God and he lamented over his calling.  He was persecuted, had no wife and children, he was hated and despised because of his prophecies.  So he had to rely on God.  He knew what it meant to trust in God.  In order to stand on the promise that someone makes to you, they have to have some credibility.  Their reputation has to be good. You have to have some kind of evidence that they are who they say they are and that they can do what they say they can do.  Jeremiah wasn’t just putting his trust in anybody.  He put his trust in God.  He put his trust in the same God that had delivered him from his enemies; the same God that kept him when he had no one else.  The same God that stepped out on nothing and created heaven and earth.  Jeremiah was putting his trust in the same God who made the sun and the moon and flung the stars into the sky.  Jeremiah was putting his trust in the One named

“I AM THAT I AM”.

Do you know the God I’m talking about?

The Everlasting God, The Most High God, the God who made the birds that fly in the air and the fish that swim in the sea. The God who parted the Red Sea for the Israelites, the God who made the walls of Jericho fall, the God who gave victory to Gideon, the God who made water come from a rock and manna fall from the sky. The God Jeremiah was trusting had a reputation! God had already proven himself. If God did it before, God could do it again. So Jeremiah could say with confidence

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord”
because
WHAT GOD SAYS,
I know,
GOD WILL DO!
BLESSINGS WILL COME.

If you want to know how to make it through a dry season,

When your prayers ricochet, keep on praying anyway.

If you can’t pray, lift up a song to the Lord.

Don’t go by what you FEEL,

Go by what you KNOW.

Faith is the evidence of things NOT seen.

We walk by faith, and not by sight.

When you can’t trace Him, you still have to trust Him.

Remember Abraham? Abraham had a wife named Sarah.

My Bible tells me that Sarah was barren.

She couldn’t have any children.

God told Abraham that he was blessed and the blessing of God would yield him descendants as numerous as the stars in the night sky.

And though Abraham and Sarah grew old,

Abraham trusted the Lord and when he was 100 and Sarah was 90, Isaac was born.

Look at David.

God chose David to be king over Israel.

But Saul was jealous of David and chased David out of town.

Saul tried to hunt him down to kill him and there were many times that David was in hiding, afraid for his life.

But David trusted in God and David became Israel’s greatest ruler.

Remember Ruth, Naomi’s daughter-in-law? Through the death of her husband and through famine and homelessness, not knowing how she would survive, she trusted in God and found favor in the eyes of her kinsman Boaz.  She married him and bore a child who was King David’s grandfather.

These stories are in the biblical witness to give you hope, to show you examples of what God can and will do, if you continue to trust.  Heed the word of the prophet Jeremiah and stand firm in the Lord like a tree planted by water. Jesus, our Lord, said He is living water and those that drink will never thirst again.  Let your roots sink deeply and draw nourishment from the living water that is our God and in the heat of the dry season, Jeremiah says,

"you will not fear, nor will you be anxious
because you are trusting in the Lord.

You are blessed."

AMEN