Why Isn’t God Blessing Me?

I have to admit that I have asked this question many times.  As I grow older I think I have begun to see the answer clearly.  I have mixed feelings about it, though.

Here are some things that I accept as true:

1. God loves people.  Actually, the truth is stronger than that:  God is love .  His very nature is love.  It isn’t just that love is in God, or that God is in love, or that God chooses to love; He is love. There is nothing in Him that is not love.  As a result, He loves continuously and without exception.
2. God is omnisicent, omnipresent and omnipotent.  Those are big Latin words that philosophers and theologians use to describe the nature of God.  To explain briefly…

• Omniscient.  God knows everything.  He knows about all events.  He knows what causes everything.
• Omnipresent.  God is present everywhere at all times.
• Omnipotent.  God has unlimited power.  He can do anything.

Now, here is the critical unescapable implication of these facts:  God cannot fail to do what is in our best interests.  I used to say that God will not do anything contrary to our best interests.  However, that is not strong enough. He cannot do anything that is contrary to our best interests.  Let me say it another way: God’s nature is love.  That means that by nature He wants the best for us.  He cannot want otherwise.

Some may object that this limits God, and that limiting God is inappropriate.  However, to say that God’s nature is love is merely to say about Him what He says about Himself.  God tells us in many ways, including His written Word (1 John 4:8), that He is love, that everything He does is loving and that He is incapable of doing evil.

“Love” can be defined on many levels.  It has some abstract meanings, as when we ask, “What is love?”  In this context, however, I am defining it on a practical level.  I want to talk about what love means in terms of what love does in our relationships, specifically our relationship with God.  In other words, “What does God do to us and for us as a result of His loving nature?”

Many authorities follow the definition of “love” used by C.S. Lewis in his book, Problem of Pain. Describing the relational love that comes from God, he says ”Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” From that idea we get “unconditional love,” love your enemies” and so forth.  By this definition it is possible to love someone without endorsing his/her behavior, or even liking her/him at all.  It is possible to give someone over to the consequences of his/her actions when doing so will lead to his/her “ultimate good.”(1 Corinthians 5:5)  It is even possible for God to love individuals without giving them everything they want or expect.

So here is the simple principle we take away from these facts:  God wishes the best for us and He has the complete ability to do what is best for us.  If, through God’s loving actions or inactions towards us, we do not receive what we wish for or expect, we must accept the truth that God is doing what is best for us because He cannot do otherwise. That is a blessing!

If God wants to bless us. then why does it sometimes seem otherwise?  Because…

1. God allows natural law to control much of what happens in the world.  Some people conclude that because God can control every detail of the universe He must, in fact, do so.  This is not true.  The Bible tells us that the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. (Matthew 4:45) This just means that the rain falls wherever nature dictates that it falls.  God could use the rain to reward and punish people and at times probably has done so.  Most of the time, however, He just leaves the rain up to the natural laws that He has put into place.  We cannot make assumptions about how God feels about us based on whether it rains on our picnic or not.
2. We are not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.  Our circumstances are far more complex than we can understand.  We even have a popular expression for it… “God only knows.”  He, as the expression implies, knows everything that affects our welfare.  We do not.
3. We don’t have the same values that God has.  Our ideas about “blessing” come from our circumstances and our flesh. (Galatians 5:16)  Look at the picture that accompanies this article.  When I first saw it I thought, “Why would I want to illustrate the concept of blessing with a handful of acorns?  They are very common and I don’t even like to eat them.”  Then I realized that a handful of acorns would indeed be a blessing to a squirrel, or even to a starving man.  Would you pay a days wages for a loaf of bread?  The Bible tells us that the day will come when that will be considered a great deal. (Revelation 6:6)  Which person will be blessed then; the one who has a wallet full of cash or the one who has a bag of flour and the ability to bake bread?  Our values are largely controlled by the influences with which we live, and the primary goal of of many of those influences (advertising and marketing) is to create feelings of need and inadequacy in us.
4. We are trying to control what we get and what we have.  Almost everything in our flesh and in the world around us tells us that we need to acquire and accumulate as much material goods as possible.  The Bible tells us that God isn’t too concerned about our material possessions but that He will completely care for our actual needs. (Philippians 4:19)  However, God’s loving relationship with us requires Him to allow us to choose between His provision and the provision of the world.  He understands that we will be more blessed if He is in charge of taking care of us, but He will allow us to try to take care of ourselves, if we insist.  When you feel that God is withholding His blessings from you, ask this question:  Would you rather have some of what you think you want or everything you actually need?

If we accept the truth of these propositions, we have to accept their implications.  When we ask, “Why isn’t God blessing me?” we are making one of three possible errors:

1. We misunderstand what God is doing.
2. We misunderstand what blessing is.
3. We prevent God from blessing us by refusing to allow Him to have control of meeting our needs.

Since I started by telling you that I sometimes ask the question myself, you will now understand why I have mixed feelings about this conclusion.  When I feel that there is something inadequate in my “blessing formula,” I may be right.  When I conclude that the inadequacy is on God’s side of the equation, I am desperately wrong.  He is totally willing and able to bless me abundantly.  I am often unwilling or unable to trust Him to do so.

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Tagged as: blessing, Christian, expectations, human nature