How do the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) challenge conventional ideas of happiness and success, and what do they reveal about the values of the Kingdom of God?
Which one or more than one of the Beatitudes speaks most deeply to your life, and how has it/have they shaped your personal experiences, relationships, and sense of purpose? Share specific moments that have influenced who you are becoming.
The structure of the Beatitudes is very critical when it comes to how we view our own ideas of success and happiness because they remind us of all of the hardships and struggles that others may encounter in their lifetimes. When we think of happiness, our minds may jump to sitting at the beach on a summer vacation or even being a celebrity and being admired by a large number of fans. However, the Beatitudes make us think about happiness in a new way defined by the attention we pay towards others and that mercy and purity we give to them. When we follow the ideas in the Beatitudes, God will take into account our actions towards those in need and potentially reward us in the future. Our level of success should be based on our relationship with God and how much we value the importance of those in need. What these Beatitudes reveal about the Kingdom of God is that the rules and ideas followed in the Kingdom of God may be different from the world we live in today. They also reveal the kind of life you could expect to live in the Kingdom of God and we need to use the Beatitudes to gain experience in God’s greatest values. For example, the Beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” is based on the idea that those who show mercy towards others will result in them being shown mercy from others. This sort of idea resembles what God values the most and how times of pain and suffering should not be ignored, but should be responded to with love and compassion in order to overcome. God does not focus on the amount of money we have or the position we have at our work, but he instead pays more attention to our characters and what we do with how much we have.
One Beatitude that speaks the most deeply to my life is “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth”. This Beatitude focuses most on humility and and to avoid arrogance, and that is the exact type of approach I take when I interact with others. One of the biggest lessons I learned growing up was always to emphasize the idea of being humble and never to put yourself above others. Humility is also very important in how you build relationships with others because no one ever wants to be friends with a person who is overly arrogant, and they always value when you show appreciation towards them. Some smaller experiences I have of showing humility is actually losing games on purpose so the others around me do not have to experience that sense of losing. Also, other small instances of humbleness are just times of sportsmanship after you do win a game and to focus more on each other than the outcome. But being meek, or humble, does not just happen during games, but is a very large aspect of your life. Just focusing on showing appreciation towards others and the understanding that you need to put yourself aside at times and focus on the happiness of others is something that I, ironically, take a lot of pride in. I always emphasize looking out for others and making sure the life they are living is as enjoyable as it can possibly be. Another Beatitude that is a big part of my life is “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”. This one focuses a lot on not to define people by the mistakes they make and never to judge them by their mistakes. Lots of times when you deal with little kids, they may participate in an activity that they are really struggling at, and sometimes it takes a lot of patience and mercy as you wait for them to get it. We live our whole life making mistakes, so if we did not show others some mercy when they make these mistakes then you would not be able to prolong any relationship with others. I remember lots of times during school where I was informed of some gossip towards other people, and I always liked to hear all sides of the story before I made anything of the situation. There is so much more of an impact that all of the Beatitudes have had on myself throughout my life and have had a huge impact on who I am today. But these teachings are not something that you learn as a kid and forget about as you become an adult, but are something that you should always look back to because God’s values should greatly influence how you live your life.
