BLESSED IS …

THE ORIGINAL BLESSING

Some years ago, an Australian politician was quite often heard saying ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’.

But he was mistaken. Life was meant to be easy. Indeed, the original two humans were ‘blessed’ by God:

‘God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”’ – Genesis 1:27, 28.,

This original blessedness applied to:

Life itself. Our life, our very existence, is God’s gift to us. God’s decision ‘let us make man’ (Genesis 1:26) is an action of deep grace. God did not need to create us. He chose to create us.

Marriage and families. Today, our sexuality, our marriages, our parenting, are the cause and location of much of our stress, our struggles and our suffering. But that is not how God made it and not how God intended it. God’s ‘be fruitful and multiply … fill the earth’ was the first part of his original blessing. Sexuality, marriage, children – all were part of the blessing.

Our life and our role in the world. The second part of God’s original statement of blessedness is a definition of our place and purpose in the world: ‘fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ God in blessing humans, put us in a position of authority over and responsibility for the earth and for all the creatures that he created. But that also has become the location of struggle, stress and suffering: not only living creatures but also the very earth itself, threaten us with death.

Our survival. The third part of the original blessedness was ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth and every three that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.’ An abundant supply – pure, uncontaminated, fresh and free. But now survival is difficult. It takes hard work to survive physically. Surviving involves stress, and struggle, and suffering.

Genesis tells us ‘God saw all that he had made, and it was very good’ – Genesis 1:31.

What changed? How and when and why did this original human blessedness cease? When did the stress and the struggle and the suffering begin? What happened to the ‘very good’ that was there in the original creation, in the original blessedness? Why is it so different that anyone in any age, in any place, could conclude with the Australian politician, that ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’?

Genesis 3 gives us God’s answer to these questions:

There we read of the original human sin: the original doubts about the goodness of God, the original rejection of God’s word, the original disobedience of God’s command, the original exaltation of self to the centre of life; the original rejection of God.

And with the rejection of God the original blessedness dissolved:

Life became threatened by and subject to death, as God had warned it would – Genesis 2:17.

Sexuality, marriage and families became subject to dysfunction - frustration, difficulty and pain – 3:16.

Our survival became a constant struggle – 3:17-19.

Various theories of evolution deny the blessedness, the goodness of the original world. They teach that what we see today is the way it has always been – struggle and suffering and death. And that that is the way it will always be – struggle and suffering and death. That it was never easy, and never meant to be easy. Because, they assume, there is no one ‘up there’ – no God with his plan and his purpose and his blessing.

But, as we will see in this series of meditations on ‘Blessed is …’, there is still the possibility and the availability of God’s blessing. A far greater blessedness. A permanent blessedness.

© Rosemary Bardsley 2026