Michael W. Smith - A Simple Blessing: The Extraordinary Power of an Ordinary Prayer

what i learned from

a simple blessing

THE EXTRAORDINARY
POWER OF AN
ORDINARY PRAYER

Michael W. Smith

with Thomas Williams

I HAVE BEEN BLESSED ALL MY LIFE. Im not speaking just of the abundance of what God has given me, though those blessings are extravagant and too many to count. I mean I have been blessed verbally all my life. Godly people have actually said words of blessing to me. As far back as I can remember, my dad and mom have blessed me. Not only by being amazing, loving, and supportive parents, though they were every inch that. They blessed me with words. With encouragement. With positive reinforcement. Theres no way to know how much good that did me in my growing-up years. Theres no doubt that I am the man I am today because of my mom and dad.

Later, Don Finto, who was pastor of the Belmont Church in Nashville, became a greatly respected mentor to me. He often spoke a blessing over me and he still does to this day.

These spoken blessings have been such a big part of my life that I guess it was natural for me to say blessings over others. I still do it. For example, when a member of my band was leaving rehearsal to embark on a trip, I sent him on his way with a blessing.

Fairly recently, this idea of praying blessings over people has gained an even larger importance for me. Let me tell you why.

I have toured the world for many years, giving concerts in cities from continent to continent and border to border. At each stop I meet people in all walks of life, from the rich and famous to middle-class families in the suburbs to people struggling to get by. Most of these encounters are brief and perhaps what some would call superficial. Yet I draw a lot of pleasure and meaning from them.

While I dont claim any kind of clairvoyance or special insight, I do believe that over time one learns to read certain subtleties in what people say and how they respondsubtleties that reveal an overall sense of their spiritual well-being, or lack of it. Mostly these revelations come through loud and clear in what people talk about. It shows where their minds are, or more to the point, where their hearts are.

At some point I began to notice a subtle change in the people I met. What I sensed was not anything I could put my finger on or analyze from specific data. Yet there seemed to be a shift in peoples expectations about what made life good, what made it worth living. Of course, most people who come to my concerts already believe in God, are friends of believers, or are scoping out Christianity to see whether it has answers. Music can often be the key to helping these people. It can reach beyond the capacity of words and touch chords in peoples hearts in ways that open them up to learning more.

What I sensed from my conversations was this: almost everyone is looking for blessings of some kind. No surprise there; we all hope to find Gods blessings. But the change I sensed was in the kind of blessings they wanted. On the one hand, people were hoping God would bless them with a higher income, a lower stress level, better relationships, better child care, better transportation, even a better church with a better teacher and a better worship pastor. To the people I spoke with, these and similar things were their greatest needs.

At the same time, I was hearing more about needs of an altogether different sortspouses cheating on each other or leaving, children on drugs, the struggles of single parents, maxed-out credit cards, bankruptcies, and addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or pornography.

It didnt take long to see that the desire for blessings and the problems these people were experiencing were two heads on the same monster. The first list showed me what these people wanted, and the second showed me what they got. It wasnt hard to see that the second was often the natural result of the first. If people would change what they were pursuing, they wouldnt find themselves staring through the shattered window of broken dreams and torn relationships.

In short, it seemed to me that many of the people I encountered were simply looking for blessings in all the wrong places. It was clear that many were becoming infected by the culture that surrounds usa me-saturated culture of instant gratification that breeds high expectations of comfort, entertainment, and material wealth.

This change disturbed me. I began to see pain in the midst of our land of plenty. And I really hurt for these people. You cant hear stories like I heard without it touching your heartoften because I have experienced a tinge of their problems myself. I felt a real need to help, to do something to address all this pain. So I made these looming human needs a part of my personal times of prayer, asking God to meet each individual in a way that only he could. Yet I had the nagging feeling that I could be doing more. It occurred to me that in some way I should be using my onstage exposure to help people address these growing concerns. But what could I do?

I remembered the power of praying a blessing. As I said above, such prayers have long blessed me, and throughout the years I have blessed others with such prayers. Maybe I could bless my concert audiences in a similar way. I could pray a prayer of blessing over them. In terms of getting Gods attention, I knew that a spoken prayer in front of an audience is not likely to be any more effective than my private prayers. But I thought it might have the added power of calling peoples attention to the source of blessings they might have forgotten. I decided to try it.

I wanted this blessing to be specific enough to cover many of the issues that I felt needed addressingthose growing areas of hurt that I had been witnessing. So I did a little research and found several blessings from various sources. I drew from these, wrote sections and phrases from my own heart, and added Moses blessing from Numbers 6:2426 at the end. The blessing has changed somewhat over time, but the prayer of blessing I generally use now is reproduced on the page following this introduction.

I first spoke this prayer of blessing to a captive audience on an Alaskan cruise ship. The response, which I will explain in the first chapter, was utterly unexpected and overwhelming. Based on this experience, I began to include the prayer of blessing at the end of many of my concerts. I still do that, and the response continues to inspire me.

As it became clear that the prayer of blessing was touching a deep chord with people, I saw a need to explore the meaning of the prayer and address it to a wider audience. It was obvious to me that there was a broader need out there for the kind of thing my prayer was offering. That is why I decided to write this book. I want to help Christians learn what I learned from this prayer of blessing. I want to help them learn to focus on what is truly valuable and seek the only blessing that can make us truly happy: Gods blessing of character.

Just so there wont be any misunderstanding, let me say emphatically, right here and now, that there is nothing magical about this prayer of blessing. Its not a formula to assure you of vast material blessings or even of a trouble-free Christian life. Its nothing like an incantation or a discovery of some secret buried deep in an obscure Old Testament passage that will mystically turn your life around. It is not something you can use to manipulate God into giving you whatever you want. God does not respond to words or formulas. He responds to the heart. There is no way we can use prayer or Gods promise of blessing to gain what we term today as the good life. Gods real blessings are not of that sort. They are better.