A few years ago, at the Greenbelt Festival,  I came across a group called the Nine Beats Collective

who were running some sessions based around the ancient wisdom of nine sayings of Jesus.

These sayings of Jesus all start with the word blessed – blessed are you when …

So I went to the sessions, and I bought a little book – The Ninefold Path – that contained some reflections and spiritual exercises, but it stayed on my bookshelf – that is until this week.

I had actually been thinking about the book last week sometime, and on Monday I decided to have a look at in my daily prayer time.  So I took the book, along with my Bible and my notebook and sat down to read.  First, I looked to see what my daily reading from the Bible was, and could hardly believe it when I saw that it was those exact same sayings of Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel!

I just love it when that happens. Call it synchronicity if you like. It’s when God says something through the daily events of life.  It happens a lot actually if you look out for it.

That encouraged me to take The Ninefold Path book and look at it seriously.  So this week, I have been focusing on Beatitude no. 1 – Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Essentially this is saying that the most important thing that God is looking for in us is a willingness to let go of the idea that it’s all about our own efforts.  All that God has for us is gift. We simply have to see our poverty and need, and receive.

So each day this week, among other things, I’ve been asking myself:

What am I thankful for today ?

What do I need today ?

One of the the things I love about these sayings of Jesus is that they are so accessible.  You don’t need to be a religious (as in Churchy) person to benefit from them.  You don’t need a degree in theology.  You don’t even need to have much in the way of believing in God actually, just an openness to learn and receive. There’s wisdom here to help anyone in daily life.