And be gracious to you

"The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." ' "So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them." – Numbers 6v24-27

This is another neat picture here. In the middle of this blessing is the phrase, ‘The Lord…be gracious to you.’

I looked at this word ‘gracious’ a little bit. From what I learned it is a word that suggests one bending down to an inferior. It deals with showing grace and favour to a lesser.

When I read this I thought of a ‘real life’ picture that I think we can all identify with. Think of an adult talking to a young child. There are some adults who don’t know any better, don’t think about it, or don’t care who will tower over a young child when talking to them. Try to imagine what it would be like to talk to a big person a good metre taller than you! How comfortable could it possibly be?

On the other hand those how know something about children know that to get anything done we must get down t the level of the child. When one really cares about a child they know that we must ‘bend down’ to them instead of trying to communicate from our own altitude.

Where would we be if God did not show His grace to us by ‘bending down’ to us? We have no hope of reaching up to Him. He had to bow down and He did that ultimately when He sent His Son to earth, in the form of a man and the role of a servant.

Praise God that He is gracious to mankind, else where would we be?