I have always struggled a little with the idea of asking God to bless me.
It isn’t because I don’t believe God blesses us. Quite the opposite. When I look back over my life, I can see blessings I probably didn’t recognize at the time. Some arrived disguised as opportunities. Others arrived as people. Some may have even arrived as closed doors that I once resented.
But asking for more has always made me uncomfortable.
How do I ask God for more when someone else has less?
How do I pray for greater freedom when another person is praying simply to survive another day? How do I ask for financial security, peace, opportunity, or an easier season of life when there are people carrying crosses far heavier than mine?
I know intellectually that God’s generosity is not a finite resource. My receiving something does not mean someone else receives less. God isn’t dividing a limited supply of grace among billions of people.
And yet, emotionally, I still struggle with it.
What if I’m standing in the way?
Recently another question occurred to me.
Instead of simply praying:
“God, please bless my life.”
Perhaps I should also be praying:
“God, show me all the ways I am getting in the way of the blessings You want to give me.”
That is a considerably more uncomfortable prayer.
Because now I have to be willing to hear the answer.
Maybe I confuse obligations with vocation.
That’s the difficult part.
Discernment.
The life I imagine requires letting go
There are things I would like from the remaining years of my life.
More peace.
More freedom.
More time for prayer.
More simplicity.
Less noise.
And then the guilt arrives.
What if choosing greater simplicity creates difficulty for others ?
What if pursuing peace looks selfish?
Those are difficult questions for someone who has spent much of his life believing that his value is partly measured by what he can accomplish, fix, provide, endure, or carry.
Maybe this isn’t my season
There is another possibility I have to accept.
Maybe the season I am currently living simply doesn’t allow for everything I desire.
Maybe God is saying, Not yet.
And perhaps (although this is harder to admit) some of the things I desire may never come at all.
Christianity doesn’t promise us the life we design for ourselves.
Jesus certainly never said, “Follow Me and eventually everything will work out according to your preferences.”
Quite the opposite.
“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” — Luke 9:23
That means surrendering not only the things I fear losing, but sometimes the things I desperately hope to receive.
That is where I find myself asking a different question:
Should I stop asking for blessings and simply ask God for contentment?
I’m beginning to think the answer isn’t necessarily one or the other.
Contentment doesn’t mean having no desires
St. Paul wrote something that becomes increasingly meaningful to me as I get older:
“I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.” — Philippians 4:11
Notice that he says he learned contentment.
It didn’t simply happen.
And his contentment certainly didn’t mean his life became easy. Paul knew hardship, rejection, imprisonment, uncertainty and suffering.
His peace came from somewhere deeper than his circumstances.
Maybe that’s what I should be asking God for.
Not:
“Lord, give me enough blessings that I will finally become content.”
But:
“Lord, teach me to be content whether these blessings come or not.”
That prayer feels very different.
It doesn’t forbid hope.
It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t ask God for something better.
Jesus Himself tells us to ask, seek and knock (Matthew 7:7). There is nothing inherently selfish about bringing our desires before our Father.
But perhaps Christian prayer eventually matures from “Give me what I believe will make my life better” into “Give me what will bring me closer to You.”
And those may not always be the same thing.
A prayer I’m still learning to pray
Maybe the prayer I need isn’t complicated:
Lord, I am grateful for what You have already given me.
If there are blessings You still wish to place in my life, help me receive them without guilt.
If I am standing in the way of Your will, show me.
If there are things I need to release, give me the courage to release them.
If there are responsibilities I am meant to continue carrying, give me the strength to carry them well.
And if the things I desire are not part of Your plan for me, teach me to be content without them.
Above all, don’t let me become so concerned with building the life I want that I fail to recognize the life You are asking me to live.
Amen.
I suspect I’m not the only person who struggles with this.
There must be others who feel guilty asking God for more because they already know how much they have. Others who quietly desire a different season of life but feel the weight of obligations, expectations, or fear of disappointing people. Others who wonder whether they should keep asking God to change their circumstances or simply ask Him to change their hearts.
Perhaps that uncertainty isn’t evidence of weak faith.
Perhaps it is where surrender begins.
Because maybe the greatest blessing isn’t finally receiving everything I’ve been asking God for.
Maybe it’s reaching the point where I can honestly tell Him:
“Whatever You decide is enough for me.”
