Count your blessings

I don't know why God chooses to bless us in the ways that He does.  I don't know that any of us can undersand it. At the very least, we lost the ability to process and comprehend it in a meaningful way, when that incident in the Garden of Eden happened.  Because of that distance that was put between us and God, we lost the understanding closeness brings.

I was thinking about this today because I was thinking about my family.  I know that we are not Rockerfellers or DuPonts.  I know that we are not doctors and lawyers.  And I know that we are not perfectly well behaved.  Knowing all of this, however, does not change the fact that I think we are blessed beyond measure.

We are not without our challenges and problems.  Blessings don't work that way.  They do not come as a repayment for suffering, nor as a prepayment for trouble.  It is not a quid pro quo kind of relationship with God, where the Blessing Machine spins and sends you something after a particularly bad day.  Blessings from God come from our investment in Him.

For most, that realization causes distance in their relationship with God.  If you want peace in your life, you are going to have to spend time finding peace with God.  If you want happiness in your life, you are going to have to spend time finding happiness in God.  If you want security, you have to find security in faith.  If you want certainty, you better figure out what the one certain thing in the universe is.  These are all vulnerable positions for humans, where you have to be the lesser within the relationship.  You have to admit need, and inability to supply that need yourself.

If you can figure your way to doing that, and it is very, very hard, you break down the barriers that sin  put into the world in Eden.  You also become a person that has access to the blessings of God.  Blessings from God do not come to everyone, in my opinion.  I think that good and bad things happen to everyone.  It is not that God allows or prohibits things, it is that sin has warped the world. Because of that, the order and precedence of things God established at the creation is fractured and damaged.  It is still however, a world created and orderd by a God that abhors chaos and waste.  There seems to me, that there is a balance, that even sin cannot destroy.

The fact that bad people, and we are all bad people, have good things happen to them is not proof of the love of God.  It is just proof that God created a world that is too beautiful to be destroyed by sin. This is a required opinion, because it makes the logical corollary true.  If there were good people, they would have bad things happen to them.  It is a function of the fall, not of the whimsy of God.

I am saved, by and through the grace of Christ.  I did nothing so far in my life to deserve it.  There is nothing that I will ever do in my life to deserve it.  However, it is a done deal, bought and paid for, through no action of my own.  That means God loves me, more than I can imagine, more permanently than I can fathom, and with a love too pure for me to conceive.  Nothing I do will change that, ever.  

And, in that realization, comes the understanding of blessings.  God does not have to give us anything, but He gives us everything.  We would receive it, regardless of our attitude about it.  What makes these good things a blessing, in my opinion, is that knowledge of relationship with God.  I am not theologian enough to cite the dogma and verse.  I just know that the knowledge of what is reflected in me, when I receive good from God, is important.  

I do not think, or propose that God gives us bad.  I think that is an impossibility, but I live with the knowledge that God has allowed bad to come to me, when it does.  There is not anything about God that is bad, so I cannot dump the bad in my life on His door.  But, He has allowed it to come, because I am a sinner.  I do not have the right attitude and relationship with Him constantly.

God, His grace and presence, shine through me when I recognize who is primary in our relationship.  When I see the world as a servant, and as His servant especially, I begin to look through the prism that lights the world from God.  I feel better about me, which makes me see my condition correctly, and clearly.  It is then that I see what God intends me to to see.

Peace is not just the absence of turmoil, but the comforting blanket of God's presence.  My home becomes a house of love, because you can feel the love of God within it.  My soul becomes calm, because I am within the confines of God's will, and nothing can overcome that.  

Notice, that at no point did I suggest that God blesses me with money, or fame, or things.  I do not think that God cares about money.  There is no mention of a Tree of Money in the Garden.  Satan did not offer man money, when we were still perfectly attuned with God.  Satan offered us knowledge, and we threw eternity away for it.  Beecause that is what God treasures most, and we need most.  That has not changed because of sin.

So, today, I counted blessings, love, family, faith, hope, peace.  I found them in my life, and reflected in the lives around me.  The light of God shines in all of us, the blessing is in seeing it.  Knowing it is shining out of you is the real blessing.  God counted your blessings today, so should you.  It is a wonderful feeling to know you are that loved.

I love you all.