“Blessed” should not be available on Facebook as a momentary “feeling,” but as an unchanging status. Biblical blessing is abundant and enduring. We are to understand that God is the generous Giver of blessing; it is not for us to decide whether or when we are blessed.

After resisting the time-consuming temptations of social media for some time, I eventually succumbed and joined Facebook. Since then, it has been interesting to see the innovations that have been made, including the introduction of “feelings.” Facebook users are now able to record feeling happy, sad, blissful, excited, exhausted or, perhaps the most popular, blessed.

On Facebook, to be blessed seems to mean enjoying the company of friends or family or being in a picturesque location with the sun shining. It is far less likely for someone to consider that they are feeling blessed if they are in the same location, in the same company, in the pouring rain! 

But surely, blessing is something more lasting and solid than a few sunny hours that quickly pass. Are we still blessed when the sun is not shining? Or when it seems as if the sun has not shone in the circumstances of our life for some time? As hymnist Matt Redman writes,

Blessed be your name, when the sun’s shining down on me. When the world’s ‘all as it should be’. Blessed be your name.

But also,

Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, though there’s pain in the offering. Blessed be your name.

And what about in these strange days of the COVID-19 pandemic when the sun may well be shining, but travel is restricted, we are separated from our friends and family, and national death tolls rise daily? Are we still blessed now?

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