{"id":241,"date":"2025-08-25T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/?p=241"},"modified":"2025-08-10T22:33:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T22:33:40","slug":"bless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/bless\/","title":{"rendered":"Bless"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1022\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px-1024x1022.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-242\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px-1024x1022.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px-768x767.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px-560x559.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-25-DSC_0209-byJoelBrumbaugh-Cayford-1200px.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Photo by Joel Brumbaugh-Cayford<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul,<br>and all that is within me,<br>bless his holy name.<br>\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul,<br>and do not forget all his benefits\u2014<br>who forgives all your iniquity,<br>who heals all your diseases,<br>who redeems your life from the Pit,<br>who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,<br>who satisfies you with good as long as you live<br>so that your youth is renewed like the eagle\u2019s\u201d<br>(Psalm 103:1-5, NRSVue).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Activity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">We humans most often think and pray about how we want God to bless us. But the Psalmist encourages us to turn that human instinct around, and to bless God instead. Why do you think God would welcome our blessings? What blessing would you give to God today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul,and all that is within me,bless his holy name.\u201cBless the Lord, O my soul,and do not forget all his benefits\u2014who forgives all your iniquity,who heals all your diseases,who redeems your life from the Pit,who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,who satisfies you with good as long as you liveso<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}