Most of us will forever remember March 2020 as the month “the world stopped,” the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and our lives were altered for the foreseeable future – a “foreseeable future” whose parameters continue to move even two years later. Business and church shutdowns, online worship, virtual schooling, masks, social distancing and Walmart pickup became the cadence of our daily, much-constrained lives.
Our family complicated things even more: That same month we sold our condo in the North Georgia mountains and moved lock, stock and (downsized) barrel about 60 miles south to a nearly 200-year-old log cabin on wooded acreage shared with our daughter and her family. Change, much?
Decry social media all you want, but for me, as for millions of others, from March 2020 on, social media prayer groups, friends’ posts and long phone calls to far-flung, sometimes long-lost companions became lifelines, connections to real, live PEOPLE. Heartwarming, encouraging, lively discussion threads and conversations ensued, lifting my spirits and keeping me tuned in to family events, current news, politics, and Christian ministry and happenings.
But another uplifting thread emerged, too: Like-minded groups across the world used music to raise hope, stimulate gratitude, and, for Christian believers, enhance faith, trust and praise in God. The popular praise song “Waymaker,” by Michael W. Smith, became the nightly, comforting “anthem” of our local Christian radio station, a reassuring reminder that God was at work in a strange time, yet in familiar ways.
But it was Kari Jobe’s “The Blessing” – an adaptation of Numbers 6:24-26 — that caught my attention, for several reasons. Practically every time I turned to Facebook and YouTube, I saw the Zoomed faces of musicians from another country performing the iconic words set-to-new-music as a benediction on a hurting world. Irish voices, Japanese voices, English voices, American voices, Israeli voices – the musical “movement” of sorts grew and grew.
I have always loved the Numbers passage, and as a child I grew accustomed to the calming, comforting use of American composer Peter Christian Lutkin’s familiar musical score as a benediction after worship in my childhood church services. In the Christian college town where I grew up, versions of the Bible verses set to the music of John Rutter and Lutkin frequently showed up on concert programs, and Lutkin’s version was a staple in my high school chorus repertoire.
But it wasn’t until January, 2021, that I noticed, really noticed that Kari Jobe had not only created a beautiful, updated setting for the Numbers passage, but that she had also incorporated into her composition the timeless “thousand generations” words of blessing – the theme verses of this blog — that echo from God’s mouth in Exodus 20:6, Deuteronomy 5:10, Deuteronomy 7:9, I Chronicles 16:15 and Psalms 105:8.
My “revelation” came when the worship leader in the church we’ve chosen to attend since our move used “The Blessing” as the closing song – the benediction – to an early January 2021 service. Because of COVID, we, like millions of other Christians across the nation, had mostly gone to church online. But on this morning we were actually seated in a socially distanced family grouping with our daughter, son-in-law, and their three children – the first time we had gone to church together physically in well over a year.
And while I had listened to the words online, I had not really heard them. After all, I “knew” them. Nor had I sung Jobe’s lyrics. Until that January morning.
But as the worship band played, and I sang the familiar words from Numbers, I focused with heightened clarity on the words from Deuteronomy and Exodus that flashed up on the screen next:
…May His favor be upon you
And a thousand generations
And your family and your children
And their children, and their children
May His presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
He is with you, He is with you….**
How had I missed these lines before? Again and again, as the music swelled, I resonated to the promise of God’s unfailing love to those who love Him and keep His commandments. My arm reached over to draw my nine-year-old granddaughter close, and I was gobsmacked by the beauty of her clear, sweet tones singing the words with fervency and joy, patent evidence of the faith being passed on to the next generation.
As I navigated my COVID-constrained life in a log cabin, in a new community and church, what joy to be reminded, once again, of the truth of God’s promises of love, blessing and favor to “a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
And now, with the world opening up again, may I never forget to receive His promises, rejoice in His provision, and respond with continued love and obedience. The beat goes on….
** Produced by Cody Carnes, Austin Davis, Henry Seeley, Jacob Sooter and McKendree Tucker.
