God's Blessings
It may be because I have been doing this blurb for too long but I am starting to see symbolism in everything. As I was bathing this morning I thought about how much more enjoyable it was than showering. I know all the reasons, green and otherwise, why showers are supposed to be better but I still like to soak in a full tub of hot water. I then thought about how we talk of God showering us with blessings and consider that to be a marvellous thing but think how much nicer it would be to be in a great pool of blessing to be able to be completely submerged in and surrounded by God’s love. Strangely this reminded me of what I had thought I would write about today, which was limitations, ours and/or God’s.
Two weeks ago I was at a women’s meeting and one of the speaker’s messages was that although, or maybe because, this is a time of shortage and hardship we should consider it a time of double portions. She felt that as everyone was feeling blue they needed twice as much love and help to lift them, both spiritually and financially. People feeling the stress of life need extra help and support. Charities feeling the pinch of the recession in their own budget need twice as much in contributions to maintain their level of activity especially as they probably have twice as much need to meet. We have to try twice as hard to be God’s children to survive it all.
Nowhere in the Bible does God restrict or qualify what is available to us. There is no form of rationing when He dispenses His beneficence. All forms of control come from man’s power struggle and his inability to comprehend the nature of God. Yes terrible things can happen but we have the resources to overcome them, we just do not use them properly in this materialistic world. Take Friday’s Comic Relief appeal for example. Millions of children in Africa die of malaria, a disease that can be prevented by use of a mosquito net over the bed. These nets cost five pounds each; to us not a lot in the scheme of things but to those who live in poverty in African slums more than they can afford. In a couple of hours the appeal raised sufficient to provide a million nets without anyone here really feeling the pinch. Why can we not do this without the emotional blackmail?
I have still not finished reading “The Shack” by William Paul Young, but I have read something that relates to this matter. The main character is having trouble reconciling the relationships between good and evil, God and man. God explains this to him by likening man to a bird that chooses to walk everywhere. It is still a bird and still capable of flight but it does not use this ability. This is what happened when Jesus became human, He was still God but he chose to be human. It means that when He told the Disciples to reproduce His acts of healing etc. they could do so because being wholly human Jesus did nothing a human could not do. Man is still as capable of maintaining a close relationship with God and living by his faith as Adam was but he chooses not to do so – God is still there and available, He has not withdrawn or made His love conditional. It was Adam and Eve’s behaviour that caused the rift.
If we are to benefit from all that God has for us we have to let go of our own schemes and have total faith in Him. We read in the Gospels, that Jesus told His Disciples to have faith and ask in His Name to receive. When we ask for things in Jesus’ name do we really believe God can do them or do we have a plan of our own we expect Him to rubberstamp? That speaker two weeks ago urged us to make more time for God in our lives, not just the chit chat necessary for day to day existence but also special times together when we really get to know each other – what she called a “table for two with God”. We need to realise God is with us all the time and we have to relinquish our selfish ambitions and power struggles to be in a right relationship with Him. Trust Him.
