Infinite Blessings

God’s blessings are infinite.

My daughter has been playing guitar for five years now. She’s become pretty good at it. While she likes to perform, and happily plays any time she is asked, every time I try to get her to enter any sort of talent contest, she flat-out refuses. When I kept asking her why, she told me that she loves playing, but wanted to know why I expected her to compete for some sort of prize or recognition. She wanted to know why she couldn’t just play for pure enjoyment.

I was speechless. (a rarity for me) She posed a good question. Why did I expect her to compete? If there’s an activity that she enjoys doing and it fills her soul and she can use it to serve God as well, isn’t that enough? Does she have to perform for some sort of human accolade or recognition?

I quickly reversed myself and told her that she should play whenever she wants and only then. She has experienced a similar situation with her grades at school. She does well because she works hard. She makes A’s through her own sweat and work ethic, not because school is easy for her. But, inevitably after every test, there’s one girl who just has to know what her grade is. Why does it matter? The girl finally told another student that my daughter always made one point higher than she did and she just couldn’t stand it.

Again, I ask why? What difference does it make? Is there a limited amount of A’s available? Furthermore, she’s not going for valedictorian or anything like that. Why does the other girl feel the need to compete?

I’m all for competition in sports. There really has to be a winner. Why else would you play? There is legitimate competition for class valedictorian and Star Student and things like that, but why do we want to compete over every little aspect of our lives? It’s as if we believe that there are a finite number of people who can have talent or a finite number of people who can be honor students or a finite number of people who can have nice houses or good marriages.

We sometimes act as if God has a finite number of blessings available. But, if we dig deeper, we have to know that the word finite can never be used to refer to God. If we know that truth, then why do we insist on competing with one another relentlessly?

I think maybe it’s our focus. I think when we focus on ourselves or on other people, we are not focusing on God. When we focus on God, we use our talents to the best of our abilities to honor Him with our lives. That may look like winning a soccer game, but it may look like playing, “Jesus Loves Me” at children’s church. It looks a little bit different for everyone.

What God focus never looks like, is fretting that someone else has nicer clothes or a newer car. The focus should be using our talent to serve God and fellow Christians with it. It doesn’t look like always seeking the spotlight or obsession with winning.

Jesus said, “The last will be first and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:16 The Kingdom of God is full of infinite blessings. They simply don’t run out. I think we should keep our eyes on Him and off of ourselves and our neighbors and count our blessings. They really are infinite. What do you think about infinite blessings?

Have an awesome day!

Wendy