Pour You Out a . . . Blessing

Yay! I figured out how to give myself a title line for my blogs! That's a great accomplishment for someone as "websavvy" as me.
OK, so the dumb thing is that by the time I get to my own blog site, I'm so brain dead that not much makes sense and random things make me excited . . . oh, wait! that's normal for me. Anyway . . . What was I going to write about?

Ah, yes. Malachi 3:10
"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

My 5th/6th grade students are learning about poetry these days, and we've been studying the lines of poetry and the way that they make certain words stand out to be noticed. So I let them try their hands at it with Malachi 3:10--they were to divide the prose verse up into lines of poetry wherever and however they chose to. The result? 6 different poems that emphasized different aspects of the verse.
As I read their poems to them, they wrote down the words in each that stood out and we talked about what made them stand out. We got the giggles over the fact that no matter where the word "meat" was placed in the poem, it always got the emphasis. But even that had a message too (one that was, perhaps a little over their heads at this time)--God's Word is to be meat to us, and the pastor's job is to feed the flock of God: how else is the pastor going to be able to give us meat if we do not supply God's house with the tithes and giving that we ought to?
By the last poem, I was very touched by the beauty of the poems and of the verse itself and of the promise given in it and, most of all, touched by the God who wrote that verse to begin with--wrote it so that everyword would have significance and beauty and power ("Every word of God is pure" Proverbs says!). The last poem brought tears to my eyes. The student (K. Montgomery) wrote the poem so that the word "blessing" would stand out

"and pour you out a
blessing.
That there shall not be room enough
to receive it."

That's about how it was, I think . . . if my memory serves me right.
Well, when I read it, the line endings require that the word "a" be drawn out a little and the word "blessing" be paused after (I know this is getting technical--please stay with me!). So it reads as follows: "pour you out a . . . blessing . . . That there shall not be room enough to receive it."

And as I read it to the class, I was struck by the realization that I often wonder what God will pour out for me. Pour me out a . . . flat tire? Pour me out a . . . headache? conflict? failure? I shudder and cringe at what God might pour out from those windows of heaven. But it's a blessing.
"Of course!" my brain realizes in relief. "A blessing! Isn't that what God promises? Why do I always doubt Him?" I wonder. And the tears come to my eyes as I remember that He does bless me over and over again--sometimes through tough times, yes, but always always blessing me. And it's always, somehow, a surprise.