May the Lord bless you and keep you
My wife's dad has been in heaven for over 30 years, and we still miss him every single day. One of the things that I miss about him the most is how he would send us off every time we went home to spend time with the family. Without fail, Laurel's dad would come outside, after the car was all loaded, stop us before we got in the car to drive away, and pray a fatherly blessing:
"The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace." (Numbers 6:24-26, NIV)
I will never forget how beautiful and comforting those words were as he blessed us with the peace of God.
, sometimes you don't know how to pray because there are no words to embody your pain. I often run into this situation as a pastor when I simply don't know what to pray because the story that someone has just shared with me—the story of their real life—is completely overwhelming.
When I don't have words to pray, my mind always goes back to my heavenly Father and my earthly father, both of whom would say, "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace." (Numbers 6:24-26, NIV)
So, I often pray those words over people and with people when I'm simply left with no words of my own.
, if you're in a situation today where you just don't know how to pray, my hope is that you would pray this blessing out loud over yourself. I believe the Bible wants us to make prayers personal, and because God said it and inspired it, I believe we can claim it for ourselves!
If you are overwhelmed, needing wisdom, courage, help, or simply needing strength to put one foot in front of the other today, pray this prayer with me right now and make it your own:
May the Lord bless me and keep me. May the Lord make his face shine upon me and be gracious to me. May the Lord turn his face toward me and give me peace. Amen.
My friend, you just prayed a prayer that I can promise you God heard and will answer!
Never forget, my friend, you are a miracle.
