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             “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

This passage reminds me of the passage in Deuteronomy where the people of Israel stood on two mountains. The Levites read out blessings and curses, and the people responded, “Amen” (So-be-it.)

One of the struggles some people have with the ideas of blessings and curses is that they see them as magic, or as something that is done to a person as a result of their doing something. It’s sort of along the old line Bea Arthur made famous, “God will get you for that…” or like Karma.

The first thing we need to get straight in our minds is that being blessed or cursed isn’t magical. It’s not something God comes along and adds on. It’s sort of like standing an inch from a state border. Stay where you are, and you’re in one state no matter what is happening to you. Step over the border and you’re in the other state, no matter what happens to you. The border doesn’t move. The other thing is that we tend to assume that we are blessed or cursed as a result of our actions when the truth is more likely to be that our actions are the result of our state. It doesn’t say “the person who does this will be blessed,” but “blessed is the person who does it.”

C.S. Lewis discussed this when he wrote about there being no ordinary people. We are all moving toward being either blessedness or cursedness. Jeremiah lists some characteristics of each sort of person. The cursed man trusts in men and draws strength from himself. His heart turns from God. And the consequence of doing those things is that he only has himself as a source. The blessed man, on the other hand, trusts/has confidence in God, has confidence, meaning that he can draw on God as his Source. 

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