Grace Gifted

Many years ago when the Christian bookstore shelves started filling up with the more modern, contemporary, and trendy versions of the Scripture, the Beatitudes along with the rest of the Bible took a licking.  The more popular trend seem to be to rid the Beatitudes of the word "Blessed"  and substitute "Happy."  Perhaps, the assumption was that modern folks would rather be happy and than blessed.  Happiness has always been something promised by secular commercialism as it hawks it magical products that if used will make folks happy, or at least more happy.    

Actually, the Beatitudes are not about being happy in the sense the secular culture thinks of happiness.  The Beatitudes are about being grace gifted.  Living in a pool of happiness is not the spiritual blessing Jesus promised, but living with an awareness that life is about being gifted by grace is exactly what He wanted us to understand.  To live as one grace gifted may not give us warm fuzzy feelings associated with being happy, but it does provide for us a life filled with gratitude that transcends any situation in which we might find ourselves as we live out our days.   

Having a lot or a little is irrelevant.  Having others see us as one who can be abused and taken advantage of is not something from which to run.  Being a peacemaker is often costly and hungering and thirsting for righteousness may put us at odds with the accepted goals of secular culture.  If we live in the whatever of life as one who knows that life is about being grace gifted instead of being happy, we will find for ourselves a new direction in life as well as the kind of contentment which is dependent upon nothing but pleasing God.  It is surely a different way of life, but then this is exactly where Jesus was pointing us when he preached those Beatitudes into existence along ago.