Blessings from God
by Pastor Jim Strelan
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The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest (Psalm 85:12).
There are different ways of understanding the way God works in our lives. Some believe that God is active in every part of their lives so that there are few choices they make without God directing them. For example, ‘God, please help me find a parking space’. Others have the view that there is very little that God does in terms of our day-to-day living, almost as though he set the world in motion and has basically been sleeping ever since. Except for when your boat has overturned, and you are thrashing about in the open sea – then you cry out to this inactive God!
So how does it work? Look again at verse 12 from the psalm, ‘The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest’. Read the whole psalm. It suggests that there was a time when things weren’t going so well. But God restored their fortunes, he forgave their sins, and he set aside his anger (verses 1–3). Why did God do that? Was it because the people asked him to? Maybe. Was it because he saw how faithful they were, and so he rewarded them? Or was it because that is God’s nature? He would much rather bless us than curse us. In God, ‘love and faithfulness meet together, righteousness and peace kiss each other’ (verse 10).
The point is this: when we see God blessing us, when the land yields its harvest, when we acknowledge that we have a new start because our God is gracious and merciful, then we are left with nothing but gratitude. We thank God for blessing us, even though we know we are deserving of much less. We thank God for being true to his nature and not acting according to our nature. When life is a struggle, we look expectantly to the time when our sovereign God will once again bless us.
Thank you, Sovereign God, for all your blessings on us. When the going is tough, please help us to wait on you. Amen.
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