holding back a blessing

"Rise up and praise Him, He deserves our love...."
(Paul Baloche, "Rise Up and Praise Him")


Here's a thought: 

The Father can and does withhold blessings if those very blessings would become a snare. In fact, I think in such a case we are the ones holding back the blessings.

I know this can be hard to swallow, but think about it. If we are in any way wavering in our devotion to Him, do you think His blessing us with something will make us any more devoted? I really don't think so. 

Do you think your children would love you more if only you would give them something they really, really want? Wouldn't that almost be like trying to buy love? "If you'll just do this one thing, this one time, then I'll do whatever you want me to." That's just wrong.

I'm going to get personal here.


I believe the Lord wants us, all of us, to be absolutely devoted to Him, so much so that He will even withhold blessings if those blessings would draw our attention away from Him. Even if those blessings are children. I might say, "Lord, we are devoted to You. We put our faith and trust in You. We serve you in numerous ways. Why is that others who seemed to be less committed, or fail to regard You at all are being blessed with children?" I think He might say something like, "You're not them. My plans for you are for you and they are for your good. You need to hold up your end of the relationship."


Oswald Chambers said we need to be very careful not to substitute service for devotion. Service is to come out of an ongoing, continuous devotion to Jesus Christ. (The Lord opened my eyes to this this morning at the breakfast table.) Everything we do for Him and others needs to be rooted in His love for us and our love for Him. That's why the first and greatest commandment is to love the Father.


I believe He is testing Denise and I in this area, wanting to be certain we are absolutely 100% committed as a couple in our devotion to Him, before a little one comes along, because we all know that won't make it easier. A blessing would end up being a snare if our attention and adoration is drawn to the blessing rather than the Giver of the blessing. 

I believe we've fallen short of what He expects and deserves from us and He's spoken to our hearts on this over the past couple of days. I know we definitely don't have all the answers, though I don't think we need to have all the answers. We still don't know why it took so long to get pregnant, only for it to finally happen and then result in miscarriage, and then be unable to get pregnant again. But we trust Him. He knows what's best for us better than we know for ourselves.

When it comes right down to it, I think the Lord is presenting us with a win win situation.