Blessings

Well, we are officially at my dad's. This is the 3rd night here and we finally have internet. Good thing too, I probably would have suffered from some kind of withdrawal or lack-of-internet-attack or something.

We are still super cleaning the old house as part of the deal. We haven't got the dog here yet either, but tomorrow is the day. For sure.

Tomorrow is also the last day of 2010. I wish the changing of the year actually meant something. I would love for everything to change magically because it's a new year, but sadly January 1st is just another day.

2010 has sucked, really. I can't remember many really good things that have happened and I have really sat down and thought about it. In 2010 I lost faith in a good bit of my church family, I lost my security (Brian's job) and I lost my home, to name a few. Most of those things have been in the past 6 months.

Thinking about those things I started thinking about "blessings". When something good happens we say "Oh I am so blessed!" Occasionally when something bad happens we will still say "Well, this happened but I still have ___ so I am blessed!" and even more rarely we say "Despite it all I have Jesus, therefore I am blessed." but I have NEVER NEVER heard someone say "I have been blessed with loss."

Maybe it is our generation, maybe it is our culture, but in our minds "blessings" and "stuff" are synonymous. We get a big fat check or a new car or a new home and we say "God has blessed me!" but where does the bible say "Live for me and I will give you stuff!" or "Be a Christian and I'll make sure you live a fluffy life!"

I'm pretty sure my bible says that being a Christian will be hard.

I've never read anywhere in my bible where it says that when we are being "good" He will give us treats. Yet that is the attitude I keep running into.

"Oh, well I have been going to church every Sunday for 3 years straight so God blessed me with a new car!" or "I teach Sunday school so God has blessed me with a new home!"

How about this? Straight from my heart...."I live for Jesus and he asks for more! I give as much of my free time as I can spare and He asks for the time I am putting elsewhere! I give until it hurts and he wants me to give the rest." You know why? Because I am blessed! He takes things away because when we are at the bottom, when we have nothing left at all, we run to Him. Even when we feel we are close to Him we can always be closer but sometimes it is not easy to know how to do that, well, He made a way for me, and what better blessing is there?

We are not puppies. We do not do tricks for God so that He can reward us, and often "blessings" are more like curses, even though we may not realize that.

Am I against "things"? No. I still like things, unfortunately, but I am suggesting we rethink our attitude on blessings. I truly believe God is more likely to bless us in ways that have nothing at all to do with anything that could pull us away from Him.

The greatest blessing I have received in a long time: I often get discouraged with our youth group. They are teenagers and teenagers will be teenagers. I think that says enough. I complain often to Brian that I don't feel like we are reaching any of them and everytime they make a bad decision I carry the weight for weeks. A few days before Christmas one of them texted me excited about a Christmas present she had received. It said something to the effect of "It's blue and beautiful and has my name on it! I have always wanted one! I love it!"

What was she talking about? An ipod? A new cell phone? Clothes? Jewelry? Other wonderful "blessings" like that??

No. She was talking about a bible. A 16 year old girl was ecstatic about receiving a bible for Christmas.

I cried. For awhile. Happy tears. Proud tears. Blessed tears.

As we go into this new year remember that just because you don't have things doesn't mean you aren't blessed and more importantly, just because you DO have things doesn't mean you ARE blessed. Jesus looks deeper than the things we own so we should look deeper than those things to find Him.