THE DOUBLE BLESSING OF BLESSINGS

It wasn’t a new thought, but it came to me very powerfully as I was reviewing Lehi’s blessings to his posterity in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Second Nephi that when blessings are given and administered through the influence of the whisperings of the Holy Spirit, both the person who is receiving the blessing and the person pronouncing the blessing can be privileged to receive new insights and revelation. Hence, the thought about the double blessing of blessings.

There is no way we can know the information base Lehi had before he pronounced those blessings, but for the latter day reader there are many new insights revealed which had not previously been spoken of. Before examining those revealed insights I want to develop some thoughts on the different types of blessings which I have been privileged to be either receiver of or a bestower of during my life.

I have never given a blessing as an Ordained Patriarch, but I have been blessed to have been a receiver thereof. I have been given the blessing of reading my wife’s and children’s blessings and since one of the duties of a Stake President is to periodically review the blessings given by the Stake’s Ordained Patriarch, I feel somewhat qualified to bear witness of the special revelatory process which attends these blessings. During the interview which accompanied the reviewing of those patriarchal blessings I was left with an absolute assurance that the Patriarch pronouncing those blessing frequently partook of the double blessing of blessings.

I hope I am not out of order by sharing a short part of my personal patriarchal blessing, but I think it helps to illustrate the heaven sent information which can include the foreordained blessing we received from our Heavenly Father before we left His presence to fulfill our earthly mission.

When I was being interview by the Patriarch prior to him pronouncing my blessing, he asked me what I felt I wanted to do as a career. I was scantly beyond the starry-eyed fireman, sports hero, cowboy answer phase of my life and since I was heavily involved in a University entrance track in High School which required a lot of math and science, I answered I was thinking about something in the science field. When the Patriarch got to the part of my blessing which included an indication of the direction my life’s career would take me he started by teaching me that Theology is the science which includes all sciences and then proceeded to tell me that I had been given the gift of being able to understand and teach the principles of the gospel and that many would be blessed because of this gift.

I hadn’t finished High School before this gift started to unfold in the reality of my daily life. At what I considered to be a very young age, I was called to be a Sunday School teacher to a group of students whose years of mortality were just short of my own. Since that time until today, I have been blessed to exercise my foreordained gift. I have used it as a full time missionary in my youth as well as later with my beloved. It has been the means of providing for my family as a part time and full time teacher for the Church Education System in the Seminary and Institute programs, as a writer in my ‘retired’ years and hopefully as a husband and father. The part about others being blessed, will have to be determined by those who find themselves in that grouping.

The type of blessings with which I have had more personal experience than any other are Priesthood Blessings. I have been blessed to give blessings to each of my children when their names were entered onto the records of the Church. I have laid hands upon them and others in time of extreme illness and witnessed the Lord’s miraculous intervention. I have given blessings which accompanied ordinances and ordinations of the Church and I have given blessings to those over whom I had stewardship in Church callings.

During those blessings, I have come to know the uniqueness of my children and the importance of allowing them their agency and resultant consequences. I have received the absolute assurance that the calling a person had received was from the Lord. Another revealed truth I learned was that Heavenly Mother taught many things to Her daughters during the time they sojourned in Her presence and that it is possible for them to recall that knowledge during mortality. One of the most precious gifts I have personally received while giving Priesthood Blessings is to be assured of the graciousness of Kathleen and what a blessing it is to be her eternal companion.

One of the marvelous things I have had happen to me during my experienced years is to have those sweet babies, now grown, lay their hands on my head and pronounce a Priesthood Blessing. I have often wondered if the prophet Nephi gave his father blessings in his waning hours.

Since I have frequently heard my priesthood brothers testify of the double blessing of blessings, I know I do not stand alone in knowing that the giver is also the receiver during these blessings.

One of the underused forms of blessings may be Father’s Blessings and even more so, Mother’s Blessings. I know I was far too reluctant to use this privilege which requires no church membership nor special ordination, but comes as part of the foreordained privilege to those who have ever acted upon another as father or mother. This type of blessing can be given at any time when a mother or father is acted upon by the Holy Spirit. It can be done as a sincere prayer whether the child is present or far away. It can be done in the form of counselling. It can be formalized by some familial tradition. It is a blessing of being and interacting with each other during mortality.

I wish I had been more alert while I was in Mexico serving as a missionary when a young man, but it didn’t really dawn on me until Kathleen and I were serving as missionaries in Colombia that a large number of parents, especially mothers always gave their children a blessing as they departed the home. There were some of those blessings which were somewhat routine, much like the blessing we give before meals, but they were always given with warmth and love. I feel all families would be blessed if Mother’s Blessings became a more frequent part of their husband’s and children’s lives.

I have felt it during my prayers, while counseling or just being with or thinking about someone who calls me father the continualness of the double blessing of blessings which attends these familial experiences.

If you have managed to still be reading this Thought after that lengthy introduction, I would just like to emphasize, it matters little what we call it, whether it was a Father’s or Mother’s Blessing, a Priesthood Blessing or a Patriarchal Blessing Lehi was giving his posterity, since the title of the blessing is less important than the source of the blessing. My personal testimony is that Lehi’s source was the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.

Since I made a rather lengthy list of Lehi’s revelatory blessings to his posterity in last week’s Thought, I would like to add to that list some of the revelations and principles which we read in these blessing.

The Americas will be a blessed land for those who serve God

Jacob beheld the glory of God in his youth

Only through the mercy and grace of the Holy Messiah can we dwell in the presence of God

Opposition as a necessary part of our development and progression

Devil is a fallen angel who seeks to make all men miserable like unto himself.

Mankind’s days are prolonged that they might repent

The fall of Adam and Eve was an essential step in Heavenly Father’s Plan

There is a connection between overcoming the fall and having joy

The freedom for the mortal children to make personal choices is an essential part of the Plan

The posterity of Joseph the son of Lehi would not be entirely destroyed

New information about Joseph who was sold into Egypt is made known

The Choice Seer of the Lord would come from the loins of Joseph

The writing of Judah and the writing of Lehi’s descendants would be joined in one book

A seer would be raised who would be named Joseph by whom the writings would come to the world and the descendants of Lehi’s son Joseph

This future Joseph will be an instrument in restoring the House of Israel

I am absolutely certain that as Lehi was pronouncing these Holy Spirit guided blessings upon his posterity, the principle of the double blessing of blessings was strongly felt.

Let us never forget – Blessed is the person, family, city, nation and world which is blessed by the revelatory whisperings of Holy Spirit.


THOUGHTS FOR A SABBATH DAY – WILLIAM L. RILEY

EDITED BY – KATHLEEN W. RILEY