What is Your Story of Blessing?
“I will bless you . . . and you
will be a blessing . . .
and all peoples on earth will be
blessed through you.” (Gen. 12:2-3)
“. . . those who have faith
are children of Abraham.
Scripture foresaw that God
would justify the Gentiles by faith,
and announced the gospel in advance to
Abraham: “All nations will be
blessed through you.” So those who rely on
faith are blessed along with
Abraham, the man of faith.” (Gal. 3:7-9)
Dear Friends,
“Yeh yeh, tell us our family story,” my ten-year-old son asked his Yeh yeh (paternal grandfather in Chinese). My son always loved stories. So Yeh yeh began to chronicle the Ho family story. What emerged was a story of God’s blessing persisting down many generations down to our children. When God blesses one person, he invites the entire family down the generations to be blessed. When God blesses, the blessing never stops. It never runs out, never dries out—generation after generation. This never-fading, never-flickering blessing is our confidence for our lives, our families, and the nations of the world.
For the Ho family, the multi-generational blessing of the Lord came from Yeh yeh’s father, an opium addict who became a Christian and a church planter through the love of China Inland Mission missionaries. Then it came through my parents-in-law who served with the well-known Chinese Christian writer Watchman Nee. For me, the multi-generational blessing of the Lord came from my Grandma Unwanted (yes, that really was her name). She was uneducated but when she believed in Jesus, she taught herself to read the Bible. Today, I not only inherited her Bible but also her legacy of being blessed to be a blessing to all peoples. Because of Yeh yeh’s opium-addict dad and my Grandma Unwanted, my sons are now blessed to be a blessing to the nations.
God promised Abraham, “I will bless you . . . and you will be a blessing . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Gen. 12:2-3).” This promise did not stop with Abraham. God himself repeats this blessing five times to Abraham, then to Isaac, and Jacob. God then repeats it a sixth and seventh time in the New Testament to us.* Four times out of seven, God said that all peoples on earth will be blessed “through you and your offspring.” We are not to hoard His blessing. Instead, we are to channel His blessing to all the peoples of the earth. He has blessed us down the generations so that our children and our children’s children will be blessed to be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. God doesn’t just call individuals. He calls entire clans down the generation. If we have been blessed, we are called to be a blessing to the nations. This is his assurance to us as we pray for children, grandchildren, and spiritual children to come to the Lord: “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off . . . (Acts 2:39).”
I don’t feel “called” into missions, per se. I think I’ve been blessed into the nations. It is this overwhelming gratitude of God’s multi-generational blessing that compels us to serve him. It’s that endless receiving of His blessedness that propel us into missions.
What is your story of blessing? I would love to hear it. Do you have a grandpa who was a preacher, a grandma who was an educator, or an aunt who always prayed for you? Perhaps you are the first believer in your family and your story is one of hardship and transformation. Whether your family story of blessing begins with you or many generations ago, I encourage you to write it down to tell the next generation—be it your physical or spiritual children—so that the next generation can tell the world and repeat it to the next generation. Let us be His story tellers!
Blessings,
Mary Ho
*Genesis 12:1-3, 18:18-19, 22:16-18, 26:3-5, 28:13-15; Acts 3:24-26; Galatians 3:7-9
Dr. Mary Ho, DSL
All Nations International, Inc. | International Executive Leader
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