being blessed

Within the past couple months I have received blessing after blessing and one act of provision being followed by another. God is so good, all the time. I cannot thank Him enough and be humbled enough by His character. I can see God in my day-to-day activities and He is always willing to amaze me still with His “big and beyond” gestures of love. I am in awe of being chosen by God and continually called to be molded and transformed into a new being that is used to glorify Him. Every day is a constant battle against this world and I am learning each day to use the tools God has provided; prayer, scripture, fellowship, etc., and to go straight to God with it all. He always comes through; He is always steadfast and faithful. I am focusing on finding my joy and satisfaction in who God is, my life should be based on Him not on the circumstances- I want to live every day content in only God.

I am trying not to hold to tight to the blessings I have received- I use them and give thanks for them and praise Him in what I am given;  the Lord gives and takes away, but He is the constant and always worthy of thanks and praise. The more I receive from God and the more I learn from Him, the more I have to offer to people in His name and the more opportunity I have to grow to be used by God. There really is nothing I have to offer, in and of myself that, which this broken and sinful world does not already offer. However, through Christ all things are possible and used for good, for the benefit of the Kingdom of God.

To be honest, I think I have always been kind of weary of blessings. Of course, I loved being blessed and being provided for, whether it was spiritually or physically, I was always willing to be blessed. I was even all for blessing others and rejoicing in others blessings and encouraging them when they seemed to have lost something. But there was always another side of it that was in direct conflict with the desire and appreciation to be blessed. I was scared of blessings, sometimes even to the point of bitterness, I don’t think I truly understood how to be blessed by God. To explain a little, I mean that although I appreciated the blessing, I feared the responsibility and accountability that came with it. Blessings are given to reveal God character to us, and in that we become accountable to the new revelation God has chosen to show us- which is in turn a blessing from God, a way of knowing Him even more intimately. Our blessings are meant to be shared and used as tools to glorify God. Sometimes our blessings are momentary, God provides in our moments of need, and has the freedom and control to change His provision according to His will. In all blessings, thanks and praise needs to be given back to God, and the abundance of His blessing shared.

That is what I was always weary of: weariness over possibly loosing the blessing, weariness over being a steward of what I was given, weariness over sharing all that I was given with others, and weariness over the new accountability to God I had received with His blessing. It sounds so stupid, but I eventually was no longer truly joyful with what God was providing for me. That’s because I was more focused on what was being given or taken away, the result, the tangible evidence- I was missing that point of the blessing, to know God’s character more intimately. God wanted to show me His love, His steadfastness, His grace, His provision, He wanted me to know Him better, and I was completely missing the point. In God’s wonderful love and mercy He has continued to pour out His blessings on me and to reveal to me His beautiful character. That I am thankful for, more than words can say. And it is another blessing to be able to see this in my life now, to be able to look back and to look ahead and know that God is at work and God loves me.  I am brought to my knees with the knowledge that God has not given up on my foolish mind and continues to mold my heart and demonstrate His providence in my life.

God has consistently shown Himself true in my life and the lives of those around me. I have seen big things from God, yet for some reason have not always chosen to believe big. That is changing, with my quiet time and study, I am learning to believe God for who He is and what He does, not just believing in Him. I am praying big, for things only God can do, using scripture to feed my prayers. I am believing big, in things only God can do, using scripture to feed my belief. I am praising big, for all that God is worthy of, using scripture to feed my worship. I know that it is easy to praise God while everything is good and blessings are being poured out, but my prayer is that I am truly thankful for who God is, not only what He has provided. I want to be guarded in my praise and make sure that at all times it is the giver who is receiving my affections, not that which has been given.