Posts
In the weeks that have followed, the Lord has brought this Scripture to my mind over and over again. For it is every true believers desire to hear the words, "Well done good and faithful servant! You were faithful with a little now I give you plenty." But truly, in our sinful hearts, how many of us are truly humble about our blessings? I think if you examine your heart, you will find pride, I know I do.
We as a society value money, beauty, and intelligence. Some are gifted in all of these things, some two, others one, and for others their gifts lie elsewhere. Let us take some examples, the financially blessed and the financial failure. Two men with equal intelligence, beauty, and work ethic - one with a financial blessing on his life and one without. The blessed one's work multiplies, everything he touches prospers; the other is a failure in all that he does. Both work equally hard. Two athletes are equally gifted, both work equally hard; one blows his knee out his Senior Year, the other is blessed with health, fame, and money. One woman is blessed with a lovely figure; another is not. Both work out at the gym, watch their caloric intake, both strive. One is successful, the other a failure.
We could site hundreds of examples; students, singers, artists.... the point is that we all have our blessings and sometimes hard work has nothing to do with success. The American Dream that if you just work hard enough at something you will be successful is not necessarily true. If God chooses to withhold blessings from your life, no amount of toil is going to change that.
 |
| Blessings From God |
Of course I am not advocating laziness, slothfulness, and apathy because sometimes in order to fully appreciate the blessing He calls us to labor long and hard as unto Him and not man. What finer prize is there in this lifetime than to strive and work for something well beyond when most would give up to finally attain the dream.
Woe to us that forget that all blessings come from Him; all good things in life are His gift to you. We are told to honor Him and to work hard but the failure I see is that we become proud. The Pro Athlete looks at his college teammate who was hurt and thinks, "I am better than him." The beautiful trim woman looks at her unattractive cousin with disdain. The rich man looks at his brother with scorn and self righteousness. We become arrogant in our blessings, they become our curses, we become their slaves.
I have been just as guilty as you. There is no finger pointing in this blog, I can look in the mirror and read these words back to myself, the blessing I have been given here is clarity. He saw this in me and arranged a fiery trial for me in 2011 to burn it out of me. It hurt, it was painful, and gut wrenching, I didn't like it at all but it was for my good. You see the blessings that so clearly flowed in my life before the trial have been withheld since. My beauty is fading, my body is fat again, my health is precarious, my career has sputtered, the magnetism that I drew people to me has dimmed, the favor I have always sought has been tempered, and I have been humbled.
Perhaps this little blog is just for me, perhaps it will touch you, perhaps it will convict you and send you to your knees in repentance. I hope so because humbling hurts.
