Month: June 2019

Blessed. I see this word popping up more and more places. T shirts, car magnets, coffee mugs. The other day I was behind a luxury car with a license plate frame that read, “Blessed by God, Spoiled by my husband.” While we should recognize and celebrate abundant goodness, sometimes I think the message is little more than an advertisement: “I have a really great life.”

 

What does it actually mean to be blessed? Does it mean that life is easy or that we get what we want?  By definition, the word ‘blessed’ means to be made holy, and that tends to look a whole lot different than a nice house, a fancy car, or even an enjoyable group of family and friends.

 

We tend to think on some level that if we’re Christians, life should be effortless. But history tells us it often doesn’t work that way. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to worship King Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue, and they wound up in the furnace (Daniel 3). Our approach would be to ensure they never entered the furnace. But which is a greater miracle? The king changing his mind, or three men thrown into a furnace and emerging unscathed from the flames? Only one results in God being praised.

 

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel to rescue his servants who trusted in him.” Daniel 3:28

 

Jesus said, “God blesses you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is given to you. God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. God blesses you who weep now, for the time will come when you will laugh with joy. God blesses you who are hated and excluded and mocked and cursed because you are identified with me, the Son of Man” (Luke 6:20-22). Unpleasant circumstances are often the tools God uses to make us holy.

 

God’s goal is to enlarge us by making us the recipients of His favor. It’s just that the path there looks very different from the one we want to travel. We’d like to join God’s team and have an undefeated season. But God says challenges make you a better player. Your skills improve when you face opposition. Your edge is sharpened when you hone it against adversity. Then He assures us that our “light and momentary troubles” are part of His design to bless us (2 Corinthians 4:17).

 

On some level perhaps this isn’t exactly what we want God to do. We would just like Him to come in and tidy things up a bit. When He undertakes a complete renovation, we’re surprised. But He’s working with a place that’s been condemned. What choice does He have other than to rip it down to the studs so He can relay the foundation, remediate the mold, remove all that’s rotten?

 

On the days when we’re without resources, longing for more, overflowing with grief, feeling left out, those are exactly the days when we need to get out the #blessed banner. God is doing something here, something only He can do, something that will result in praise when He’s finished. He’s building something more beautiful, more exquisite than we can possibly imagine – a palace fit for a King.

 

For my first twenty years, I knew very little about my father. So I made up stories in my head about him – what he was like, where he was, how he felt about me. Sometimes I told them out loud. “He lives in Texas,” (his last known address). “I spend a couple weeks with him in the summers,” (flat out lie but I thought it was what kids were supposed to do when their parents weren’t together).

 

“My real dad,” is how I referred to him, as if the man who had married my mother and cared for me regularly was somehow a fake. For a couple years, he was my lifeboat, my knight in shining armor. If I felt unwanted, unloved, I would imagine that my father loved me and one day was coming for me and when he did, everything would be better. How that must have hurt the people who really did love me and were invested in me (I’m so very sorry).

 

Then one day I finally heard the truth. It took a long time to get through the lies I had believed – the ones of my own making and others that I’d picked up along the way. I did have a “real dad,” and He loved me. I didn’t need to wait for Him to swoop in and carry me off because He had been with me in every dark and lonely place. He was deeply invested in me, longed to spend time with me, had taken care of me.  I had the right idea, but my focus was on the wrong person.

 

As a father to the fatherless, so is the Lord God in His holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

 

God used the sin that was done against me, against my mom, to awaken my heart to my need for Him. To create in me an awareness that I was missing something, someone. It’s one of countless examples of how He works all things into His plans for my good (Romans 8:28).  I had a lot to learn about what it meant to be loved by a good Father. But it comforted me to know that He did perfectly what others had done poorly.

 

I still have weak spots, places where my confidence is shaky. It’s sometimes hard to remember that God is not a man, and His love for me isn’t tainted by selfishness. When I’m anxious that God will withhold or withdraw His love for me, I’ve forgotten that God is God – perfect and good and all He does is good.

 

Now that I’m a parent myself, I’ve come to not only see how childish I often am, but also to understand more fully what it means to be fathered by God. In my better parenting moments, I look beyond the immediate desire/temper tantrum/whining to what I think is best for their character in the long run. I care about what happens to them, how they turn out. I love my kids with a fierceness and depth they will never fully know.

 

The best of what we’ve received as a child or given as a parent is only the faintest shadow of the perfect love of God the Father for us, His beloved children. What would it change if we understood that this is how God feels about us? He cares what happens to us. He gives good gifts. He’s personally invested in how we turn out. He’s passionately committed to our good and well-being. He is a good Father.

 

See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for he allows us to be called his children, and we really are!   1 John 3:1, emphasis added