Obedience Begets Blessing

We do a lot of things in life. We are friends, family members, spouses, employees... etc. Not only do we do a lot of things, but we want to succeed in all that we do. This is natural, it is how we were wired. We all strive for greatness, we seek success, and we cherish accomplishment. Let's start out with some honesty, I was born on third base compared to the rest of the world, and you probably were too. So how do we remind ourselves that we didn't hit a triple? By remembering who put us there. It can be very tempting to look at our lives as they are right now and attribute them to hard work and personal dedication, but while those are contributing factors, they are not the initiators or sustainers of our success. If I simply take a few minutes to look at my country of birth, economic situation, my beautiful and wonderful wife, the best family in the world, and my dream job, it shouldn't take long for me to realize that I'm not the whole picture here. There is no way I am capable of accomplishing all of that without some lots of help.

I could never get her without all sorts of grace!

God has blessed me indescribably in my lifetime. I'm not sure I will ever be able to comprehend the vastness of the grace He has bestowed on me, but I sure do try to give Him all the praise that I can for what I do see. Even with all of these blessings, I still default to striving for greatness, seeking success, and cherishing accomplishment. There is a constant need to improve, to move forward, to be a better version of myself. By looking around, I can see that I have little control over this, but I can be a facilitator. We all pray for God to help us in different aspects of our lives that we feel could improve. We pray that He would bless our marriage, our friends, our family, our finances, and hopefully we pray for many random neighbors and strangers throughout the day. To receive blessings in each of these areas of our lives, we must be obedient to what God has revealed to us at that point in time about said areas. There will always be wisdom that we do not know, and tendencies that we are not yet aware of, those are natural parts of the progression in life. However, if God has revealed to me a way that I am not putting my wife first, or if he has shown me that I am not expanding His Kingdom with my finances, how could I disobey what He has told me and still in good conscience ask for blessings? If at first I recognize that God is the source of all of my blessings, how could I possibly sustain those blessings or, better yet, get more blessings by abandoning Him who is the source of all that I have received in the first place? It doesn't make any sense. So, by obeying God's will for every aspect of our lives, we allow Him to bless us. We want to be blessed financially, are we maintaining our finances in alignment with the Bible? We want to be successful at work, are we working for the Lord? We want to have a happy spouse, are we putting their needs ahead of ours? We must remember that before we can move forward, we must be obedient to what has already been revealed to us. It is very difficult to do this, and it will not be without mistakes. But with the blessings I have, and as poorly as I've lived parts of my life, I can't even imagine the joy God has in store for me when I say "yes" to him in all that He asks.