Blog

Let us be honest, most times when we think, discuss and evaluate blessings it is measured in terms of a material & tangible benefit! Isn’t it?

• I am blessed, I just got a new car and that too at a really great scheme.
• Someone blessed me with their double bed and a brand new wardrobe as they were moving out of town. See the favour of God!
• I just received a 20 per cent salary hike and additional perks too. I am so blessed!
• God has blessed me with a brand new I-phone I won at a contest, I am so happy.
• I just got a promotion and now I am an Assistant- Manager, I am highly favoured!
• My husband bought me a diamond ring & it was a surprise gift, I am so blessed!

Come to think of it, isn’t all this sounding more as if we are entrants to a lucky draw at an exhibition, where the organisers are giving cash prizes/ houses/ electronics etc?

Our relationship with God is supposed to be one, wherein God the Father loves us and INDEED blesses us, His children. A Father who is interested in moulding our character, protecting us, guarding our health, shaping our growth and in our complete well-being ….Yes, besides giving us material blessings.

So, is that our relationship with God? Or is having tangible commodities the primary basis of how we measure our blessings, while we take the rest of the deeper things He blesses us with, for granted?

When I have gone to hospitals to visit someone who is unwell, while waiting at the lobby area I sometimes read the boards listing doctors and illnesses. It shocks me to read the same and see the pamphlets displayed of the innumerable and endless list of diseases and the specialists for the same.

So, if we are well and whole and healthy, going about our daily routine jobs, are we still blessed?? A simple thing like reading this blog shows you are blessed because according to a recent WHO report, 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide!

It is summer season now and the temperatures are soaring! Well, the very fact that we have had a bath and are sitting under a fan, if not an air con, then are we blessed? Because in India itself millions don’t have access to clean water even for drinking or basic electricity supply.
But how often do we look at these basics we are never deprived of instead of our unanswered prayer lists? Let’s be honest we do tend to look at our colleague’s fancy car, friends’ houses, the holidays some families enjoy and say, “Lord why am I not blessed?”

SO WHAT’S THE POINT IN ALL THIS?

I know we have heard and read these things many a times before and my purpose is definitely not to be a moral preacher.  But, I do want to say let us not look at God as One who blesses us ONLY if He is answering our prayer requests for a house, a car instead of a two wheeler, an international holiday, a better phone or some electronic gadget or a promotion and ….and… and the list is endless.

You and I are UNDENIABLY and unquestionably blessed because we can wake up and stand on our feet, have a bath and get to a place of work, or work in our homes for our families, eat our meals and afford to travel by a mode of transport (be it any ). And, not to forget, even get restful sleep which several rich and famous people sometimes long for!

I too, am learning to acknowledge and realise this friends and that has changed my thinking and made me feel so loved and so much more content of late.

DÉJÀ VU

My 5 year old daughter Sharayah and I went out recently. As we passed a toy shop and because I did not buy her one, she asked mamma, “You don’t love me?”
Then I said, “Just because I didn’t buy you a toy you feel that way?”
Mamma looks after you, feeds you, spends time with you, protects you, and teaches you… what about that???” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
It sure rang a bell to me. Only tangible benefits does not mean God loves us, He does so much beyond that friends.

We really need to stop getting discouraged and being discontent looking at blessings in terms of material benefit, saying God does not love me. In fact, honestly that is perhaps the lowest way to measure your blessings!!!! The next time we have a complaint that we are not blessed, let us pause, reflect at the truth and look to heaven and say…. Thank you Lord FOR I AM TRULY BLESSED!

STAY BLESSED and GRATEFUL TO THE ALMIGHTY !!!!!

Salma Bernard