Have you walked through a season of loss in your life? Maybe it was the loss of a child. A parent. A spouse. Someone who meant much to you. Maybe it was the loss of financial security. Or maybe the loss or decline of your health. These things often lead us to think that God’s hand of blessing has been removed from our life.
I have discovered that people have some pretty screwy theology when it comes to God and how He relates to our difficulties. Some equate prosperity with blessing and poverty with a curse. Would it makes sense that those who seemingly prosper are doing something right, while those who are seemingly struggling have done something wrong for God to withhold His blessing?
The unbelieving world is watching believers like a hawk. All I have to do is comment on Twitter to discover that. I quickly see people’s hostility as they assume I believe a certain way by twisting a comment. The way you and I so dogmatically state our thoughts on the intentions of God give many unbelievers an excuse to stray from those who seemingly equate themselves with God since they claim to know His intentions so well.
Job’s friends dogmatically proclaimed to Job what they thought about his difficulties in life. The man lost his children, his livestock, and everything but a wife who told him to curse God and die. It seemed as if Job had nothing but God. Truthfully, God was all He needed.
Yesterday, I was asking the question, “When will God bless me again?” I has been nearly 6 years since life took a huge turn for me. I was having a huge moment yesterday when I allowed that screwy theology to come to the forefront. My wife mentioned Job’s restoration. I would honestly like to know the time frame on that.
Later that day, someone posted the verse of Job’s restoration on Twitter. I never noticed something about this verse until I saw it yesterday. Notice what Job 42:10 says: “And the Lord restores Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends.” Notice the italicized phrase. Could it be that Job had to work through some feelings of animosity toward these people and come to a point of forgiveness before he saw his restoration? I could not help but ask myself if I could compassionately and genuinely pray for those who have offended or wronged me.
The answer to this question of when God will bless me again can only be answered truthfully when we know what the real meaning of blessing is. God has given blessing in these last 6 years, but I must let God and God alone define what these blessings truly are. The fact that I have Him should be enough.
Matthew Winters (Honest Thoughts from a Pastor) 
Discovering the blessing, or the gift from God, is not always easy to see. Maybe that is why God has opened your eyes, and now our eyes, for us to see more clearly. Thank you for continuing to share what you are learning with Him.
I’m so thankful for the lessons God gives me and the way He uses them to help others.
“My wife mentioned Job’s restoration. I would honestly like to know the time frame on that.”
Same here! 😂
I think there are many of us who wonder.
Me too!!
I want to thank you for taking the time to transcribe your inner turmoil for the world to receive and process. I love the wonder of the internet and the magic of being able to connect with a brother in the family of God over their shared love of God. I appreciate so sincerely how clearly you have articulated the truth of why humanity has fallen the way they have. You said it yourself, “when God will bless me again can only be answered truthfully when we know what the real meaning of blessing is.”
Humanity does not know how to count its blessings or appreciate the wonder of the world they were born into.
You asked the question, “When will God bless me again?”
To my mind, in a faithfull (purposely spelled incorrectly as I believe you should be full up on the faith of God and not just going through the faithful motions of worshipping God) relationship with the Creator of ALL, the more important question to ask is, “Why aren’t you happy with the blessings you already have?” or another “Why is what you have not enough for you to be thankful for what was granted you?”
I find myself so abundantly blessed that I don’t have enough time to spend giving my thanks for all the blessings that cross my path. My every single moment is so full of blessings that I don’t have enough time in the current moment to appreciate all that is being experienced. I have to start grouping my blessings together so I can simplify the gesture of appreciation to the Divine for blessing my life so fully.
On one hand I have five things that make me bow down in honest submission to the Will of God before everything else – Those five things are my Son, my trinity of Daughters, The Father of my Children, my Life, and my Body. For those five things alone I would sign away all my rights toward servitude for God. His divine blessing of unconditional love in my life more than makes up for everything the world refuses to provide without money. That’s just the one hand.
On the other hand, I have two things for which I am endlessly thankful to be blessed to experience – my Home and my World. Without my Home, I would not know the divine blessing that is comfort and convenience in a modern world. And without my World, I fail to be able to experience life with the other hand’s full of blessings granted to me.
These seven aspects of existence come together to create the basis for what I consider the perfect life.
From where I sit, I see you having a perfect life as well. You have the same handful of blessings that I do. The Holy Son – Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit, The Father of Creation, your Life full of faithful service to the Grand Divine, and your Blessed Body to carry you through existence. You have a Home and you were born into the same blessed World as I.
What more do you need God to give you to make you happy?
Why aren’t you busy losing yourself in happiness for the wonderful wealth of connection and creativity this blessed world offers?
What is keeping you from being so thankful you don’t want to ask for anything else?
What does God have to give you for you to say, “Thank you God, I have enough.”?
I could go on with further questions but I feel like that would come off as attacking and aggressive which is not at all my intention. I want to give you the questions that fill my mind when I consider a man responsible for leading others closer to God, standing outside God’s good graces because he fails to appreciate all that God has already put before him.
I can’t help but wonder why God would ever make over the top gestures on the behalf of a person who thinks it has been 6 years since God has shaken up his life. The God that we share works actively in my life in every single micro-moment. He doesn’t waste a moment of time doing anything that isn’t sharing His LOVE. So much so that I wholeheartedly believe that God’s LOVE fuels the progression of TIME and SPACE.
So to my mind I wonder, with God in every single moment and you’ve been living in a drought of blessings for 6 years, how are you spending your time with God? What do you spend your moments thinking about with your Father in Heaven if it isn’t to thank Him for all that he has blessed you with?
I ask this because my mental dialogue with God is progressed through my appreciation of the blessings before me. I believe I understand God’s voice because He speaks through blessings and I am insanely extreme and over-the-top in spending all my energy towards being appreciative for all that is before me. So all my mental chatter is me giving thanks for my blessings and through that thanks God speaks to me in my mind. I get insight and perspective into the workings of God that I never experienced before I started giving my ALL towards being annoyingly thankful.
I believe the biggest piece of advice I can offer is simply, “You get what you give.”
You are requesting God do something over the top to shake up your life – I wonder as you don’t feel you have received anything yet – what exactly are you doing that’s so over-the-top that God should do something extraordinary? Perhaps God doesn’t see the point in being over the top with divine magic in the life of someone who isn’t over the top in love with all the magic God already gave to appreciate.
Or even better, perhaps God already has blessed you in an over-the-top way and you have yet to learn how to see the blessing before you and properly give your thanks to a parent providing unconditional love and support to children who never seem to learn how to respect their Spiritual Heritage.
I started by finding simple things to give thanks for because of my Vow of Poverty I could not count on anything to be thankful that wasn’t tied to money. The world will literally take away everything you need to live in the material world if you don’t have the resources to afford them.
God never takes His love away. Not ever.
The only thing that happens is that His children get a sense of entitlement of what they should have rather than learning the saving grace of Adorational Appreciation for what they actually have.
I’m going to stop here because I have been quite wordy and my anxiety is triggering that I may have said something that could rub you the wrong way. Please know that I don’t want to hurt you or provoke your anger in any way – I’m not looking to tell you what to do or put you down for what you have shared. I merely what to get through the illusion that God isn’t blessing you and into the heart of why you aren’t realizing your blessings fully.
If I have shared too much, please feel free to delete my comment. I don’t want to take away from the beauty of honest sharing with the ugliness that might be perceived in my words. I am coming from a place of love and thankfulness for you being so open about what you are going through. I don’t wish to make you feel bad for sharing but rather help you feel better about the 6 year drought of life-changing blessings.
I hope you are well. If you would like to talk further I would love to know more about how your faith manifests. My email is exploringalura@gmail.com I live shut off from the world with nearly no one to talk to. I would love to talk faith and how you show your faith in the modern world. I would love to know how you knew you were meant to lead others to God. I would love to know as much as you’d be willing to share with me. I love God and I love all of God’s Creation. I would love to get to know more about the parts of God’s Creation still feeling love towards him despite being in a world so seemingly disconnected from the reality of His existence.
Much love and light and hope and faith in your every moment.
You have some excellent thoughts here. I take no offense to what you have written. On the contrary, there are some great things here to consider. I pray also that someone else will read your thoughts and find them helpful.
I am so thankful that my words came through as I was hoping. I was really worrying that I might have upset you. I’m glad my words brought some internal considerations. I believe those internal considerations are the path to relieving your struggle with blessings.
I also hope others will find my words and consider how they might be struggling to appreciate God’s blessings already abundant in their every moment.
Thank you for letting me know you weren’t upset. My anxiety is always high when I talk on subjects of faith and appreciation. I feel it could so easily go in the wrong direction if a person chooses to get defensive rather than opening themselves to an outside perspective that might lift their vision from the ground level it is at.
I always ask myself what God is trying to teach me during times of difficulty, because he’s trying refine my soul, which could be he IS putting me through such trying times. But I’m not going to lie…enough is enough. I just want to be able to have a stable job so I don’t have to run the risk of being evicted and not being able to pay my bills. I’m not asking to be a quadrillionaire, I just want to know I have my basic needs met so I can enjoy this life, like going to get frozen yogurt or knowing I don’t have choose between things like buying food or putting gas in my car. Is it so hard to ask for?!😫So enough God with the “lessons”.😒😔
Many of us have been there. More people need to be honest about it.
I just don’t know WHY people aren’t if it is. Maybe people could help each other IF they did. There’s no need in pretending it didn’t happen.
Great post. 🙂
Thank you!
Another “keeper” Matthew. Excellent point about Job. When we harbor resentment, we put a barrier between ourselves and God for God cannot bless a sinful nature. This a reminder that He is a loving Father and we wouldn’t bless our children either if they were sinning. It would only teach them to get away with a horrible habit. Blessings back,