What does it mean to ask for God's blessing? • /r/Christianity
Published by Ronald Steed,
A Redditor asked the question above… this was my take...
The idea of blessing is that God's good grace and love will flow THROUGH us (or this food, or this activity, etc) and become an instrument of healing, reconciliation, and restoration in the world. A blessed day is one in which we are instruments for these things to others... blessed food becomes the means of good heath, and perhaps even the foil for good conversation among friends or strangers so that God's healing grace can be present among them. The idea is never for blessings to "rest" in the receiver, but to be a dynamic and powerful instrument that proceeds out for the healing of the world.
A bit of this has to do with us being "image-bearing" people, which really does not mean that we LOOK like God so much as we REFLECT his good and wise governance out into the world and REFLECT the praises of creation back to GOD. Being an image-bearer is more like being an angled mirror than of appearance.
Being a blessing is a VOCATIONAL activity as opposed to a state of being....
edit: in the liturgy of my denomination, we have a phrase that goes "Let us bless the Lord!"... which is to say, let us reflect BACK to God THROUGH us, the praise of his creation... so blessing is a two way street as it were...