The bumper sticker I came across several years ago flipped the script on a common patriotic expression.
Instead of “God Bless America,” it said, “America Bless God.”
Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I was a fan.
It’s not that I’m opposed to bumper stickers. They are a wonderful form of self-expression, and I have applied more than a few of them to my vehicles over the years.
The last bumper sticker I had on my truck was a drawing of a cute sea lion cub next to the words, “Save the Baby Humans.” And my favorite bumper sticker of all time said, “My Dogma Got Run Over by My Karma.”
Back when it was more popular to admit you loved your country, it was common to see cars, trucks, and vans with bumper stickers that had an American flag and the slogan, “God Bless America.”
I could say, “Amen” to that.
But “America Bless God”?
Hmmm. I need to think about that one. Can America really bless God?
My first conclusion was that blessings flow from God not the other way around. God doesn’t need my blessing, your blessing, or a country’s collective blessing. God is God. He is the Blesser and the Blessing.
With a bit more thought, I realized I had to be missing something.
What does the word really mean, I asked myself, and what does God say, if anything, about us blessing Him?
Most of the seven entries in good old Merriam-Webster define “bless” as something you receive from God or another person (who typically is asking God to bless you). But one definition is “praise, glory” or “to speak well of: approve.”
God doesn’t need our approval, but He does want us to speak well of Him and to praise Him and to give Him glory. And that’s what we often see in Scripture when it talks about people (or angels or the rest of His creation) blessing God.
This hit me in a fresh way recently when I was reading Psalms 103 and 104 in the NASB.
The first two verses of Psalms 103 begin, “Bless the Lord, my soul,” and the last three verses begin “Bless the Lord, you His angles,” (vv 20 and 21) and “Bless the Lord, all you works of His” (v22). The phrase “Bless the Lord, my soul” also bookends Psalms 104.
The Hebrew word for bless is barak, and it means “to kneel.”
When it’s used to describe something that God offers to us, it’s a picture of us kneeling to receive a benefit. When it’s used to describe something that we offer to God, it’s a picture of us kneeling in adoration – to “adore with bended knees.”
Either way, we’re the ones kneeling.
In Psalms 103 and 104, it’s all about adoration or, as versions like the NIV translate it, “praise.”
With that understanding, I can read the bumper sticker differently.
“America, Praise God.”
Or …
“America, Adore God on Bended Knees.”
I can get behind that idea!
But how do I do that? And how does America do that?
Since I already was in Psalms 103 and Psalms 104, I looked in those chapters for clues. Here’s what I found:
Don’t forget His “benefits”– We can adore and praise God by remembering who He is and what only He can offer us. (Psalms 103:2)
He forgives our iniquities, heals our diseases, redeems our lives from the pit, crowns us with faithful love and compassion, satisfies us with good things, and renews our youth like the eagle. And that’s just from three verses (Psalms 103:3-5). Verse after verse in Psalms 103 describes God’s compassion, grace, faithfulness, justice, mercy, and love.
The first 26 verses of Psalms 104, meanwhile, describe God the Creator, with Psalms 104:24 offering a nice summary: “How countless are your works, Lord!”
To summarize: God created everything and only God can provide what we need.
Don’t forget our insignificance – We can adore and praise God by remembering we are “dust.” (Psalms 103:14) Our days are like “grass” and “flowers” that “vanish” when the wind passes over us. When He hides His face, we are “terrified,” and when He takes away His breath we “die and return to dust.” (Psalms 104:29) In other words, adoration begins with a posture of humility.
Don’t forget to acknowledge God – The psalmist connects God’s mercy to those who “fear Him,” “keep His covenant,” and “remember His precepts, so as to do them.” (Psalms 103:17-18) And Psalms 104 closes with a prayer in which the psalmist promises to live in ways that express adoration. He commits to “sing praise to my God while I live” and to “rejoice in the Lord,” for instance, and he asks that his “meditations be pleasing” to God. (Psalms104:31-35)
So, the way I see it, we bless God by remembering all He is and all He’s done, by remembering who we are and how deeply we need His grace and mercy, and by letting our words and actions express our adoration.
That’s my hope for my soul and for the soul of our nation – that we will collectively bless the Lord.
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