I like to bless not be blessed. This is a truth that has revealed itself especially during my time in Albania and I’m still working on it today. I love to be a blessing to others! But when people want to give me something or do something for me or offer help – even out of love, it is hard for me to take with a happy heart.

Usually all I can think of is how I can return the favor. I focus on how they went out of the way on an unworthy recipient who has done nothing to merit the blessing. I far too quickly pass over the love coming through the blessing and get stuck on how I don’t deserve their goodness, when really that’s the whole point. I don’t deserve it!

When I lived in Albania, my family would always be bringing me things from their garden or desserts they had made or even dinners they had cooked for their families. They would always invite me to eat with them but they never had a simple dinner when I showed up. It would always be extravagant. Even though they had little to no money, they would go out of their way to share. And they didn’t share in excess though they always claimed they had more than enough. Perhaps they did but I always felt like I was taking from their needs. So looking back, I see I never fully appreciated or enjoyed the love they were showing in their gifts of blessings. I focused on how I had done nothing to deserve it instead of focusing on the love they were sharing. Focusing on me instead of their love.

I’d rather earn those blessings. I’d rather do something to deserve it. But that defeats the whole purpose of a blessing. Blessings come from love. Blessings are a completely selfless act. They really have nothing to do with me but have everything to do with the love the other person is sharing.

How many times have I overlooked God’s blessings? Too many times because I have a hard time accepting His blessings too. I often try to earn those even though I know I cannot do anything to deserve his love or his blessings.

Yet I often find myself playing them off too casually as if things happened by chance or were the result of someone else. Or on the opposite side, feeling guilty because I know they are from him and I see so many other people more deserving of his blessings than me. I always take the focus off him and put it on me and my shortcomings. I know this must really annoy him. And yet he continues to bless me – because he loves me.

So I’m focusing more on God’s love for me – which he shows through blessings. I’m going to keep my eyes wide open, looking & expecting to see & experience God’s blessings – God’s acts of love – that he has given me! I’m going to forget about all the reasons I don’t deserve His love and instead really fully totally experience God’s love so I can live a full life, full in the fullness of God.

And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, [I’ll] be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. –Ephesians 3:18-19

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