Why is it that we say God is blessing us when things are going right? Does this mean that when things are going wrong, God is NOT blessing us? Can God actually be blessing us when in our eyes things are all wrong? What if that car accident, illness, loss of a job is actually God’s way of blessing us? What if it is really God’s way of preserving us from something far worse? Or moving us on to the next place or position that God has for us?
I was 34 years old and had been teaching for 10 years. I felt like God had made me to teach and that I would retire many years later as a teacher. But God had something else in mind. In the spring of 2001, it became clearly apparent that I could no longer stay in my position as the 6th grade teacher. My superiors were no longer willing to stand behind me in the classroom and because of a horrible parent/student situation, I was suddenly faced with the decision to resign. I had no idea what I was going to do but I couldn’t stay there. With no income coming in after August, I had made the decision not to go with my singles’ SS class on a trip to Charleston, SC until a friend told me he would pay my way to go. That trip was life-changing! While driving in Charleston, I had an overwhelming feeling that I could live there - that I was supposed to live there. My friends teased me about moving there to give history tours. So I applied to several tour companies as soon as I got home. In the mean time I took a job as a Pharmacy Technician in the local hospital. I saved my money and continued to pray. I still had the overwhelming feeling that God wanted me to move 700 miles away from my family to Charleston, SC. Finally a year later than that SS class trip to Charleston, I found myself in a little apartment in Charleston employed by the largest walking tour company there. I was single and could just up and move somewhere far away from family, but I had no idea why. God had used a horrible situation that I endured my last year of teaching to get me to move to Charleston. Was this God’s way of blessing me? It certainly didn’t seem like it. But I started over in Charleston and loved it! Then three months later, I met a guy....a guy who would eventually become my husband. That horrible situation, the lies a student told about me, the lies that a head principal believed about me....that was God’s way of blessing me. Why? Because it got me to move....literally. It got me to move 600 miles away from my closest friends and family. It got me to move into a new position in my life. And then I met Billy and I knew why. I knew from the first date that he was the one for me....God’s blessing. What looked like a horrible situation in my life, the death of a dream as a teacher, became one of the biggest blessings in my life.
The apostle Paul had an illness; maybe this was even the thorn in the flesh he alluded to in II Corinthians. We don’t know what it was and there are many speculations. But whatever it was, it was a blessing from God. How? God used that illness to cause Paul to stay in Galatia longer than Paul originally intended. Galatians 4:13 says that it was because of this illness that Paul originally preached the Gospel to those Galatians. Maybe Paul never intended to stop there or maybe he intended his stay there to be short, but either way Paul found himself in need of care and the people welcomed him and cared for him even though he thought he felt he was being a burden to them. He even testified that if they could have, they would have born his illness themselves (Gal. 4:15). In turn, Paul preached the Gospel and many believed. The providence of God put Paul in the position to minister to them and we don’t know how many came to Christ because of it. Paul asked for this illness to be taken from him but God’s answer was no. He wanted to use this illness - this thorn in the flesh - to be a blessing in Paul’s life. Paul stated that when he was weak, that is when Christ was strong! God’s power was perfected, completed, in Paul’s life through his weakness. If we knew Paul then, would we have said that his illness was a blessing? Probably not. In fact, some might even go so far as to say it was a curse to Paul. But God uses even the bad things, the things we wouldn’t say are blessings, to move us to His place of blessing. God has a plan and He desires to bless us with good things, but sometimes the things He is using to bless us are not the things we would say are blessings at all. So back to my original question, can the things that are going all wrong in our lives actually be blessings from God? Proverbs 28:20 says that God richly blesses a faithful person. Have you been faithful and yet it seems like everything is all wrong in your life? Just hold on, God really does want to bless you and He is faithful to always keep His promises. He might be using that negative thing in your life to move you to the place of His greatest blessing.
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