Blessed

Recently, Mike and I listened to a series on prayer by Louie Giglio. What an incredible communicator Giglio is! God has really used his sermon series to challenge us in our prayer life. In fact, we encourage you to search him on the internet and listen as well.

Anyway, at one point in the sermon Giglio spoke about how often we pray that God would bless us. We as Christians pray, "Lord, please bless us as we go through this day. Bless us as we sacrifice and serve you in ministry" or we pray, "Lord, please bless me with that new car and that extra bonus check at the end of the month. I have worked so hard that I deserve it."

As I search my own heart, I often find myself praying similiar prayers such as, "Lord bless us, get us to 100% support quickly." Now the point of Giglios sermon wasn't to say that we can't ask for God to provide for us, but rather he was trying to make the point that we as Christians are more than blessed. We are blessed by Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the cross; we are blessed everyday that God gives us life rather than death; we are blessed by God's unfalling love for us; we are blessed by grace and mercy each hour of the day. So is it really prudent of us to ask for the Lord to bless us when we are already more than blessed?

I am sure there are many theological arguments for the above question and I would love to hear your thoughts, but either way, I do know the next time I kneel in prayer discouraged because of my present currcumstance, instead of praying that the Lord would deliver me and bless me, I will thank the Lord for blessing me abundantly because indeed I am blessed!