The Blessing Paradox

Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t bless us more? After all, if God is all-good and all-powerful, then He can do whatever He wants. If He loves us, and wants to give us good things as Jesus teaches (Matthew 7:11), why does He not simply shower us with all the blessings we could imagine? This question is on one level a hypothetical musing, like Tevye singing “If I Were a Rich Man.” But sometimes it’s more personal than that. Sometimes there’s a question of “Why has God not blessed me?”

Maybe you’ve had a season of life where you desperately needed something, you prayed for it long and hard, and at the last minute God came through and your faith was rewarded. But God didn’t have to wait. Maybe you prayed and waited, and God never gave you what you asked for. But He could have. In fact, any good thing you could think of right now, God could give it to you. There is nothing ultimately holding Him back but His own divine, sovereign will. So, if God really does love us (and He does), and if He really can do anything (and He can), why aren’t all of God’s children living rich and posh lives? Why does God hold back any of His blessings, ever?

The answer to such a deep question no doubt has many layers, as I would imagine that in His infinite wisdom God has many reasons for why He does what He does. But we aren’t left entirely in the dark. At least one reason for this shows up in Deuteronomy 8:11-19. There we learn that God’s good blessings have the potential to ruin us. If we aren’t careful, we’ll take the good things God gives and turn inward so that we consider ourselves the hero rather than the one who needs rescuing.

11 “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18 You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.

Deuteronomy 8:11-19

 

A careful study of this passage shows us God’s concern for the nation of Israel. They were about to head into the land to take possession of it, and suddenly a group of desert nomads were about to find themselves very wealthy by ancient standards. God knew that when that happened, the very gifts that the Creator gave may become occasions for forgetting the Creator. 

After preaching and teaching through the book of Hosea, I began to notice this theme show up again and again. Sadly, Deuteronomy’s warnings were not heeded and the very situation it warned about happened. Here are just a few places:

5 For their mother hath played the harlot:

She that conceived them hath done shamefully:

For she said, I will go after my lovers,

That give me my bread and my water,

My wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns,

And make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them;

And she shall seek them, but shall not find them:

Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband;

For then was it better with me than now.

8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil,

And multiplied her silver and gold,

Which they prepared for Baal.

Hosea 2:5-8

 

Israel is a lush vine; 

it yields fruit for itself. 

The more his fruit increased, 

the more he increased the altars. 

The better his land produced, 

the better they made the sacred pillars.

Hosea 10:1

 

But Ephraim thinks, 

“How rich I have become; 

I made it all myself. 

In all my earnings, 

no one can find any iniquity in me 

that I can be punished for!” 

Hosea 12:8

 

4 Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt,

And thou shalt know no god but me:

For there is no saviour beside me.

5 I did know thee in the wilderness,

In the land of great drought.

6 According to their pasture, so were they filled;

They were filled, and their heart was exalted;

Therefore have they forgotten me.

Hosea 13:4-6

 

Reading these passages is sobering. God blesses, and sadly His blessings often ruin us. Sadly we become used to the blessings of God, then we begin feeling entitled to them. I call this the blessing paradox. The very blessings sent by God turn us from God to ourselves. It’s wicked and sinful, but it’s very, very common. So how do we keep from being ruined from the very blessings that God sends our way? I think there are a few keys we need to keep in mind. 

 

Meditation on God’s Word

The solution in Deuteronomy is to remember what God has said. Specifically, the command here is to remember the words of the covenant, the commandments and statutes. Deuteronomy repeatedly reminds the people of Israel to be rehearsing its words (6:4-9; 11:18-21). By repeating Scripture over and over, remembering God’s gracious provision, the relationship He had formed with His people, and the obligations that came with that covenant, the people would be prepared to receive God’s blessing without being destroyed. 

Similarly, we should study God’s Word carefully. We should meditate on its great and glorious truths about God, His relationship with us, and the obligations that come with that relationship. Our hearts have an uncanny ability to drift. If we aren’t anchoring our thinking in the truth of God’s Word, we will find ourselves coming to love the gift and forget the Giver. 

 

Gratitude and Giving

In the American holiday calendar we find ourselves between the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. These two days on the calendar give us a chance to focus on being grateful and to give to others. These two disciplines—thanking God regularly and freely sharing with others— are also powerful antidotes to the corruption that comes with wealth. If we thank God regularly, it’s hard to begin arrogantly acting as if I earned that wealth. If I look to give away what I have been given, I remind myself that material blessings aren’t ultimate and that God’s kingdom matters more. 

 

God’s good gifts are good. There’s nothing wrong with His blessings to us. The problem is that our sinful hearts have a natural tendency to twist the good into evil. The core of idolatry is taking something good (the creation) and twisting and distorting it into something wrong (an idol). This happens when we come to love, cherish, and rely on things inside the creation so that they play the part in our life that only God can. Sadly, the wealthier we are, the easier this is to do. No wonder Jesus warned that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. But with God, all things are possible. With God, we can overcome the blessing paradox with meditation, gratitude, and giving. With God, we can receive the blessings of God and grow through them, rather than be destroyed by them. 

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Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.

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Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash