you will be blessed

in my head I keep singing that addicting Maroon 5 tune "she will be loved, she will be loved..."--not real sure why. anyway, I really wanted to blog to elaborate on a really cool conversation my mom and I had this past weekend (it's amazing having Christian parents to discuss these things with!) I was telling her about how I've been reading and studying the book of Job lately, and we started discussing the concept of being blessed by God. Now lately, when I say that, my mind immediately goes to the whole idea of the prosperity gospel. for those not familiar with it, the prosperity gospel basically teaches that God wants you to be financially wealthy, and that you being wealthy is evidence of you having God's favor. examples of proponents of this theology are people like Kenneth Copeland, and perhaps most well konwn, Joel Osteen.

to my surprise, this movement does actually have a biblical "origin." they cite as a reference Deuteronomy 8:18, which says "But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today." now I don't want to spend this entire blog refuting this whole branch of theology, but I think there are a couple of things that appear to have been ignored when using this verse as fuel to fire a movement which is not exactly biblical in several other ways. one is simply that it seems the verse has been taken out of context, as many verses of the bible are, to support what someone wants it to support. the verse is actually a very minute part of a long list of laws Moses laid out for the nation of Israel. Moses is on the mountain, and comes back with the ten commandments, and then a few other laws that follow. the verse, to me, appears to convey a much different message than "riches=God's favor." it actually simply reminds the Israelites that WHEN THEY FIND wealth, not to forget their God. warning the Israelites that WHEN THEY FIND wealth, they shouldn't thank their own hands for it, is a little different than saying "you have found wealth, so you are in God's favor." Moses simply said this as a warning, not an indication of God's favor. a warning, by the way, that was entirely justified, since 1 Corinthians tells us that "God was not pleased" with most of these very people. the second part of the verse simply means that IN THIS SITUATION, God chose wealth AS A TOOL to bless people of this PARTICULAR LINEAGE. I feel like if God wanted to say that being wealthy was ALWAYS an indication of his favor, he probably would have said that. So there you have i:, we've taken a passage of scripture meant to warn against becoming people who God is not pleased with, and turned it into justification for gaining wealth.

anyway, this post is not about that. it's about being blessed by God, and that concept goes way beyond financial prosperity. there are three points I want to make about being blessed, so here we go:

God wants to bless us when we don't deserve to be blessed. this is a hard one for us to accept. our society is one that isn't exactly always a living example of the whole "unconditional love" idea. we have been firmly rooted in the idea that when you perform well, you are rewarded. if you work efficiently, you get a raise. if you play a sport well, you get a trophy. so for many of us, it's easy to carry this over to our relationship with God. if we perform well religiously, then God will bless us. the more Christian music we listen to, the more people we pray for, the more church events we go to--okay, now I'm just poking fun at people. I digress (spelling??) my point is, when we give into our sinful tendencies as humans, we feel like there is no reason for God to bless us. the painful/relieving reality to this though, is that if that were true, we would never be blessed.

God wants to bless us when we don't feel like being blessed. this one may not apply to you, but I struggle with this a lot. I get in my moods where I just want to sulk. it's like I tell God, "I really appreciate what you're trying to do right now, but I would really like to just feel sorry for myself for a while. my life sucks, I know it sucks, just let me sit here and think about how bad it sucks. then I'll be fine." in retrospect I really feel like God says in response sometimes, "seriously kent? I don't mean to hate on my own creation, but that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." okay, so maybe he doesn't say that exactly, but that's what I would say to me if I was Him. anyway, the point is I think God wants to bless us to show us hope when we don't necessarily want it at the time.

When God blesses us, sometimes it's not gonna feel like a blessing. this, I think, is where I was trying to go with the whole prosperity gospel thing earlier. I think sometimes when we think of God blessing us, we think of money. I mean be honest, when you hear of God blessing someone, do you not automatically think of either falling headfirst into money, or getting a new awesome job, or in general just something awesome happening to you? I know I do, even though I know that's not the point. that's why so many people eat this prosperity gospel thing up! people absolutely love going to a church where the pastor tells them God wants to make them rich. well, it's either that or the fact that there's a spinning 20 foot tall golden replica of the earth in the background (ooo, ahhh). the fact is, God wants to bless us in many more ways than giving us money. you know the whole "blessing in disguise" idea? as cheesy as that phrase has become, it's true! looking back on my life (that makes me sound old), some of the most awesome blessings have been things that sucked entirely and completely at the time they happened to me. this is why I think the bible tells us that God wants to bless us. if He wanted to, he could have just said "I want to give you money and make awesome stuff happen to you." (of course he would probably put it a little more eloquently than that, but you get the point). I mean if you buy into that thinking, any time something bad happens to you, it's because of Satan. that's kind of ridiculous. anyway, this is starting to sound like the god vs. psychology blog, so I'm gonna stop.

but seriously, if any of you gets to go visit Lakewood Church, can you see if you can bring me back a piece of the golden earth? I really think God wants to bless me with part of it. thanks.