In conversation not long ago, I got stuck trying to explain blessings. I couldn’t manage to explain that blessings are not finite in number or effect. Blessing one person does not mean that blessing is used up and there are now fewer to go around. It is a difficult and decidedly divine concept, that something is not finite. Mathematics embraces finite and infinite, but in our day-to-day activities, everything is finite. Minutes, days, how much food we can eat at one sitting, how many meetings in a day; everything earthly is countable and limited.

But blessings have this remarkable uncountability about them. Simply by receiving a blessing, we could say that is one. But what happens when that blessing extends to someone else. It is neither diminished nor divided. Has it multiplied, as in the feeding of the 5,000? I don’t know anything except that a ‘single blessing’ is not limited to one, not limited to one person or family or moment or time period.

We are moving soon, and a friend was in the position to rent us her second car at a very reasonable rate. I called it ‘barrenting’ a car. It was a blessing for her to have a little cash and for us to use a car at a reasonable rate. So, one act = two blessings? Well… I was driving with a friend later in the week and she said that in this ‘barrented’ car, she felt no back or neck pain, which always happened when she rode in cars. It was yet another person blessed by the same act.

So, now I have a decent example of how a blessing can extend without itself being limited or diminished at all. How do I explain that just because we receive one blessing, it does not limit us in receiving another or more in the future? Our blessing also has not taken blessings from others.

Bless: bestow divine favor; endow with good (trait or thing); express gratitude; praise (God). It has been a good impetus to bless others more often.

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26 NIV

How have you been blessed today? Please share in the comments.