Double Blessings by Mark Batterson

What do you think of when you hear about blessings? I’m sure that there are probably as many ideas of what the word means as there are people considering the question. Apart from the obvious ‘Bless you!’ when someone sneezes, there are a lot of ways to understand the word.

                When Isaac was about to die, he gave a blessing to what he thought was his oldest son. There were certain elements to that type of patriarchal blessing, that often are often included still today in some cultures. Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, and that was a blessing. Often today when we receive an unexpected gift, we remark that it was such a blessing—especially if it comes at a time when we have an emergency or some type of crisis that we don’t know how we can pay for.

                But Mark Batterson points out that there are 2 parts to blessings: receiving and giving. And his book Double Blessing: How to Get It. How to Give It¸(Multnomah, 2019) gives lots of examples of both.

                If you’ve read any of Mark’s other books, you know that he is a gifted scholar and writer. He has the advanced knowledge needed to write about the deepest of topics, and the gift of putting advanced concepts into terms that the ordinary reader can understand. With a combination of scripture and personal experiences, he brings his subject matter to life.

                Many people grew up hearing it’s better to give than receive, and as a result we find it hard to accept the blessings that come our way. So, it makes sense that Mark starts out by writing about how to get blessings, and then how to give.  I love his concept of double blessings, for example if someone blesses him with a gift card, he might regift it, or he might get a gift card that he knows someone else could use, or would like. The point is, he’s not locked into blessing the person that blessed him, but rather into passing the blessing on to someone else.

                And he uses these blessing moments as teaching moments, discipleship at its finest, leaving a legacy of people who have learned the blessing of being able to bless others.  Wondering if that’s biblical?  Go look up Genesis 12: 1-3 and read what God told Abraham about how being blessed is supposed to work.

                One negative comment, on an otherwise excellent book---Mark, as do many multi-book authors, often repeats anecdotal material. If this is the first of his books that  you’ve read you’ll appreciate the stories, but after reading several books, I look for something a little different.  

                As a part of the launch team for this book I received a copy of the uncorrected proof. I was asked to read the entire book and post a review. There was no requirement to post a positive review.

 Once again Mark Batterson has written a book that deserves a 5 star rating.