John 1.16 “From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another.”
Lately, i’ve been praying for a lot of blessings. God has probably reached the “I know, Les, I know…you want me to provide for your race. What else ya got?” stage of our prayer relationship. Right now, the bulk of my prayer life is geared toward financial provision for this trip. So far, God has answered these prayers in HUGE ways! He is hard at work in generous and giving hearts! My growing world race account is proof! But something tells me that i’m missing a piece of this picture. Yes, yes, YES I am astounded and grateful for the ways God has provided…but am I seeing the whole blessing?
John 1.16 tells me that blessings come in one after another–they’re a constant thing. But World Race funds do not come in at a constant, consistent rate. And because of this, I have to think that i’m missing a part of this blessing. Not “missing” as in “I don’t have it”, but rather, “missing” in the sense that it’s around here somewhere, and I just haven’t found it yet.
What if these consistent blessings don’t really fit my description of “blessing”? What does the Bible say? How does God’s word define blessing? Here’s what’s running around in my head right now: Maybe a portion of the blessing is the financial gift and provision…and another piece of that SAME blessing is the ability to trust in God’s provision for my financial need?!
What if the blessing IS faithful trust? What if trusting God IS the blessing!?
Trusting God is not something we do when we feel like it. It’s not something we do when it’s convenient or easy. It’s a decision we make daily–regardless of our situation. If this trust is constant, it lines up with what John 1.16 says! If trust=blessing, than constant trust=constant blessing! And what’s even cooler about this–if trust IS our blessing, we completely lose focus of our needs that we’re trusting God for in the first place…they no longer burden us. They no longer weigh us down! I think i’m starting to see the bigger picture here. Today I was challenged with knowing this: I do not NEED the World Race to be blessed. I just need to trust God. This is going to shake up my prayer life drastically. Maybe now God won’t be so bored when He listens 🙂
