| HOME - Blessings: Helping to Retain Them |  |
| PART I - The Problem of Fade-out | ||
| 1. The Problem | (back to top) | |
This article helps us to know what to expect. All Christians experience God's blessings. Most, probably all, experience the fading of such blessings. Spiritual 'highs' so often sink to spiritual 'lows'; healings tend to relapse; the clarity of guidance and calling seem later to get drowned by other voices; and a real love-affair with God can swing so low as to doubt his love and faithfulness. Less dramatically than the above, we have probably prayed for something and claimed it by faith, only later to find that we do not possess it. Important but unspoken questions may worry us -
|
||
| 2. Three Causes? | (back to top) | |
|
When blessings appear to go wrong, we tend to look in one of three directions to find the cause: either to God, to the
Devil or to Ourselves. (a) God. Our pride will often drive us to blame anything but ourselves, and faded blessings can lead to the conviction that God has a Chancellor-of-the-Exchequer mentality, i.e. he gives you something with one hand only to take it away with the other. (b) Devil. If our belief in God makes the first solution unacceptable, then all too many resort to the formula that the Devil has snatched their blessing away. The appeal of this solution is that it leaves both God and ourselves in the clear. (c) Ourselves. If, like so many Christians, we still live overshadowed by feelings of condemnation (which the Good News of the Gospel has not yet touched), we will blame ourselves, to justify and affirm our negative view of ourselves. E.g. Things never turn out right for me. I'm no use. I wouldn't expect a blessing to last in my case. I was wrong to have expected it... etc. This approach may appear as humility, but pride may be at work here as much as in the earlier solutions, as the following lines remind us - |
||
|
One day in saintly passion, I cried in desperate grief, 'My heart is black with guilt, of sinners I'm the chief!' Then stooped my guardian angel and whispered from behind: 'Vanity, my little man, you're nothing of the kind!' 
|
||
|
While there are some facets of truth in each of these three 'solutions', they are all basically wrong. They are
contrary to right belief about God, and ourselves, and each stems from a wrong understanding of the purpose and nature
of blessing.
|
||
| 3. Three Misunderstandings | (back to top) | |
| It seems clear that blessings wither rather than blossom usually because of one or more misunderstandings at three levels - | ||
|
Misunderstanding the Purpose of blessing. Misunderstanding the Nature of blessing. Misunderstanding the Outworking of blessing. |
||
|
The three major parts of this article will deal with each of these in turn, before concluding with some guidelines. Note that (a) my remarks can only be in note form, and (b) you may have to apply, adapt, modify - or even discard! - some things depending on your particular situation. This article can do no more than point you in the right direction. |
||
| PART II - The Real Purpose of Blessing | ||
| 4. Blessings and Living | (back to top) | |
|
A computer to some is an irrelevant mystery, to others it is nothing but a toy, but to the majority of those who have
taken the time and effort to learn what it is really for it is probably an indispensable aid. We need similarly
to learn about the purpose and nature of blessings and how to live with them if they are to be for us what
God intends. It is so sad that Christians often seem driven to confusion, doubt, despair and guilt - on account of God's blessing! Since I cannot believe that a genuine Christian blessing can be wrongly given then the fault must lie with us, and with our understanding of it and our expectations.
The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
|
||
| 5. When Blessings Overflow | (back to top) | |
God's blessings of us are part of the coming of his Kingdom on earth, and as such are meant to be used rather than
hoarded, and generally to enrich not merely the individual, but the church and the world.
This 'overflow' from blessing is evident in many of the New Testament stories familiar to us: e.g. -
|
||
| 6. When Blessings Don't Overflow | (back to top) | |
Blessings do not automatically overflow in this way.
|
||
| 7. When the Purpose of Blessings is Missed | (back to top) | |
|
Blessings are not best assessed by the excitement we might have on receiving them but by their results and the use to
which we put them. The following is a true example of a common spiritual trap. A prayer group, new to the exercise of spiritual gifts experienced its first prophecy.
One of the members later proudly and excitedly told a Christian leader: 'We had a prophecy at our meeting this week.' He replied, 'I'm so pleased. What did God seem to be saying to you all?' A sheepish look spread over the face of the prayer-group member. 'I...er...um...don't really know!' he admitted. That which was given by God to guide or enrich the group or, through them, to help others, was rendered useless, and became like a damp firework. The prayer group so enjoyed the blessing's arrival that they gave no thought to what it had arrived for! God gives blessings for a purpose. |
||
| 8. The Attractions of Blessings: Signs & Wonders | (back to top) | |
|
(a) The very attractiveness of extra-ordinary blessings can easily blind us to the purposes for which God gave
them. I am thinking of the miracles I know happen. These are often in the New Testament included under the phrase
signs and wonders.
Signs are meant to follow believers
, the tendency is for believers to follow the signs! There is always an appeal in the extra-ordinary, but the
extra-ordinary often blinds us to the use and purpose for which it is given. (b) There are many great dangers in this area - not the least being that there are counterfeit miracles. [See my article SPIRITUAL WARFARE & THE ORDINARY CHRISTIAN.] If God's working in extra-ordinary ways is over-emphasised, then the vital awareness of him present and working in the ordinary is diminished, and this can undermine our Christian lives rather than encourage us. Furthermore, if God is sought in signs and wonders we mentally tend to 'locate' him exclusively in the dramatic and miraculous. When we do this, to meet God then involves seeking him in the abnormal rather than having our eyes opened to see him in the normal. (c) There are, for instance in America some extreme Christian sects who indulge in snake-handling.
The media coverage of them is hardly likely to put it in context, but the over-riding impression it gives is of seeking
signs for their own sake, and not as equipment for holiness or mission.Few in the U.K. would follow their example, but the tendency to get pre-occupied with God almost exclusively 'in' the extra-ordinary rather than seeing him in the ordinary is common enough. It accounts, for instance, for some Christians' intolerance of medicine simply because they believe that miracles of healing take place. [See my article MEDICINE & GOSPEL: THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP] (d) To affirm that God is 'mightily present' when signs and wonders are apparent may well be appropriate, but it can all too often lead to feeling him to be 'mightily absent' when they are not! This can be devastatingly negative to a Christian individual or group, and can lead to a diet of the extraordinary and to an addiction to sign-hunting in order to 'encounter' God. (This is something of a spiritual equivalent to drug abuse.) (e) The incarnation of Jesus Christ shows us that God has chosen to live within our lives rather than at their supernatural fringe. To 'locate' God, therefore, solely in the miraculous and deny him in the ordinary is not Good News, but bad; it denies both Cradle and Cross. I believe that any tendency to 'locate' God only where obviously supernatural happenings are apparent is probably the biggest single factor that leads to blessings being present but not expected, awaited, noticed, recognised, welcomed, received, or used! To locate God only where there are signs and wonders is like saying that air is only where we discern a gale, or warmth only where we see a fire. The only 'sign' which we can focus on without fear of distortion and imbalance is the sign which Simeon discerned had been given by God through Mary, - Jesus Christ himself.
|
||
| PART III - The Nature of Blessing | |
| 9. Five Common Misunderstandings | (back to top) |
|
The purpose and the nature of blessing are so closely related that the categories merge. Here are five misunderstandings
and errors related to the nature of blessing, or which hinder our reception of it. (a) The danger of pigeonholing. God is not like a dentist or a hairdresser - concerned only with one particular bit of us, i.e. the 'spiritual'. He is more like a mother with a baby - lovingly caring for our total well-being. The tendency to 'pigeonhole' blessings into some box marked 'spiritual' or 'physical', etc. effectively robs us of much that God has to give us. (b) All 'parts' affect the whole. Everything we experience, good or bad, touches us not merely a part of us. Thus our spiritual health is affected by food, finances and fitness, as well as by fellowship. St. Paul used this truth when likening the Church to a human body. If one member [of the body] suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.
No blessing can be isolated for long from us as a whole person.(c) Blessings are not for bottling. A cleaning liquid can be kept in its bottle or can be poured out. Its only chance of ever cleaning anything depends on its being used. God's blessings to us are not to become sacred relics, but to be used according to their purpose. (d) Unwanted formulas. In many areas of life it is useful to have a mental formula, for example the one which prompts you to do what is safe with a lighted match and a gas tap! Science produces rules or formulas by which we know things will happen, but there are large and important areas of life when scientific formula do not apply. The spiritual life is one of them, because it is to do with love and human response. Tidy-minded Christians are always prone to streamline Christian experience, and to reduce God's infinitely rich and wonderful ways of working by introducing labels and expecting everyone to conform to a few simple patterns. Of course it is useful to give general names to experiences: 'Conversion', 'Healing', 'Being Born Again', 'Being Baptized in the Spirit', but we must not use them in formulas. God is not a computer, but a loving Father! I have met countless numbers of folk who have been blessed by the Holy Spirit in a wonderful way, who have found that their blessing is not quite according to some formula or other. This has led them into questioning and depression, to feelings of inferiority and failure, to despair and to guilt! And all because some well-meaning Christian has reduced the Wind of the Spirit to some neat formula and led others to assume that God's actions are regular and uniform to everyone at all times. One would have thought that the obvious corrective to that error is to read Scripture, yet it is clearly possible to have an enviable knowledge of Scripture yet still to think in terms of formulas.
(e) Ducks or Sponges? 'Like water off a duck's back' we say, and sometimes we seem to have a waterproof coating on which the dews and waters of the Spirit cannot settle. This is most usually caused by fear either of ourselves, of God, or of others. (See my article THE PROBLEM OF FEAR.) Such fear causes us to bolt the door at which the Lord Jesus stands patiently knocking
. We want to soak-up blessing, and be less like ducks and more like sponges!
|
|
| 10. The Wilderness Experience: Breaking for Blessing | (back to top) | |
We tend to recoil at the thought of' breaking', and see 'making' as its opposite; the first bad, the second, good.
|
||
| 11. Blessing by 'Remission' | (back to top) | |
|
There is sometimes confusion because it is assumed that the only way God can bless us if we are ill is to cure us. The medical world uses the term remission when a sufferer is still ill but eased of the symptoms for a period. No one who has suffered much will doubt for a moment the very real blessing of having symptoms lifted for a while. Such blessings enable one to have a 'breather' and to gather one's mental, physical and spiritual resources again for the future. The blessing by 'remission' is not the same as the blessing by 'cure'. God frequently blesses by a remission, an easing of symptoms. Sometimes such an easing will enable us to reflect on the deeper causes or the eternal dimension and goal of life. Only time will tell us whether a blessing is a 'remission' or a 'cure'. The blessing of 'remission' with the easing of symptoms can sometimes be lost because it is assumed that it is a cure gone wrong! Such beliefs lead to guilt, anger and frustration. If you have a remission - rejoice and thank God for it with all your heart, do not wreck it by interpreting it as a failed-cure. Time will tell. I remember when my own crippled mother got up and walked instantly after being anointed. [See my article ANOINTING with OIL]. We played it very low-key for quite a few years until it was clear that it was most certainly a cure (of which in the forty following years she has never had a relapse.) Had it been a temporary remission, God would not have been glorified had we witnessed too early and inaccurately so that those we told of her 'cure' then learned that she was lame again. To call changes 'cures' or 'healings' before it is known that that is what they are, is presumptuous, cruel and dishonours God rather than glorifying him. As if that were not enough, to label 'remissions' as 'cures' when they are not, undermines and diminishes the very blessing which God has given us! It is good to be reminded that Life is fatal - everyone dies of it sooner or later! Cure is not about avoiding ageing or avoiding death. |
||
| PART IV - The Outworking of Blessing | |
|
There are many ways in which we misunderstand the outworking of blessing, and here are some notes on the most common
reasons why blessings do not blossom as they should.
|
|
| 12. 'Take up your bed!' | (back to top) |
|
In the New Testament stories of the healing of the bedridden this command is given by both Jesus and Peter.
The command was an integral part of the healing and must be noted carefully. Until their healing these folk had been for long periods dominated by their beds. To have the ability to walk, but still to live mentally dominated by their beds would probably have resulted in at best a partial healing, and perhaps a relapse back into the security of sickness rather than face the demands of healthy living. Without the healing of past patterns of thought, behaviour and expectancy, a blessing of physical cure has little chance of survival. When a physical cure is given, it is only the beginning; with the change at one level must come the necessary changes at all others. What is true of blessings that seem predominantly physical is equally true of blessing of other areas of our lives, social, emotional, spiritual, past, etc. Many people pray for the blessing of a cure not so that their lives should be transformed but just to ease their present pattern. Change can be traumatic. One blind man told me that he would not be able to cope with an instant healing because of the total upheaval and change it would bring to his life. I do not write that in any criticism of him; I know that we cannot cope when too much around us changes too quickly. I have included it here because it concerns blessing. While we may want blessing in theory (and even complain about our lack of it!), we may not welcome it in practice, or, once given, may quench it rather than face its upheaval. |
|
| 13. 'Go!' | (back to top) | |
To receive a blessing is only a beginning of a greater wholeness or holiness. In the fuller accounts of Jesus'
encounters with folk he is frequently recorded as giving very firm orders to maintain God's blessing. Often this is
insisting on a U-turn, at other times it is specific direction of things to avoid if a relapse is not to take place.
Here are some examples:
If the need for some who receive blessing is to be told to do things; the main need of others who receive blessing may be the command not to do things!
|
||
| PART V - Short Programme to Maintain Blessings | (back to top) | |
Prayers - |
||
|
Heavenly Father, equip me, that I may love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength. May I love my neighbour as you enable me to love myself, because on the Cross, Jesus has displayed your everlasting love for me. Lord, I thank you for all your blessings that I/we have received Forgive the times when we have misused or ignored them. Help us to understand you better, to receive all that you have to give us and to learn all that you have to teach us. that we may grow-up into the likeness of your Son, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. |
||
| (back to top) | ||
|
The articles most closely related to this one are: WILDERNESS - THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE GROWING DAILY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT TEARS - GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT? |
| Copyright John Richards 2001, but waived for users of www.helpforchristians.co.uk |