My Journey with Jabez: Part 2

"Oh, that you would bless me indeed"

When I read in "Jabez" that the Lord had blessed the author so much that he needed a break to take it all in, I thought, I could use some of THAT! I want to know what it's like to be so blessed by the Lord that those blessings just overwhelm you!! Where do I sign up for that?

The other night while doing my Jabez journal, I decided to write down all the blessings that I could recall which took about two pages to do basically 2 days worth. NOPE, I'm not kidding! And I didn't even add stuff like I made it to work safely or we have a roof over our heads. The only thing that made the list were "gifts" we had received from others. Gifts that were tangible, gifts that were truly given freely by others to my family. And NO it isn't any of our birthdays!!

This list included actual money (a tax return that came in when I was down to $100 in the checking account and the house payment was due) or love offerings (try $350) to our family when we needed it the most (my husband is currently unemployed for the first time in 20 years). I can't tell you the amount of free plants I've received while doing this (gardening is one of my favorite things to do :), we were actually given enough seeds and plants to plant our very first vegetable garden and are currently eating fresh radishes that WE grew :) and I haven't even mentioned the flowers we've received!! We were given a water pump so that now we can water our plants free of charge with a well in our back yard. Not only were we given the pump but the person who donated it to our family spent two days at our house helping my husband prepare this well. One of my other favorite things to do is read, I've received a total of 5 or 6 books since I started the prayer. I love playing games on the computer and I've received two free games and I'm not talking about the daily freebie from Gamehouse.com. Cooking is not something I enjoy doing, at all, so I've been blessed with people just bringing me meals (they were their leftovers but HEY I'm not picky). After helping clean up from a church function we went home with a HUGE pile of veggies, which we made stir fry with, and two pies. We now have health insurance for my children and with a hospital visit and a daughter that needs $200 meds for her asthma treatment, I'd say that's a HUGE blessing. I've even been blessed with a new friendship and work opportunity that just popped up recently. Whew! I just know I'm forgetting some too.

After looking over my list that night, I realized that the biggest blessing in all was the KNOWing that the Lord has it under control and HE loves us enough to take care of it. It's not the Jabez prayer that's brought me all these blessings, it's a loving God that's blessing us because we need it and because I'm asking Him. God sees the needs we have and provides them.

I have a certain friend whose husband was out of work for months and they have aLOT of kids ;) Her husband was getting down because he wasn't able to provide for his family. One of our mutual friends made the statement to me, "He's getting down because he's under the impression that it's his job to provide for his family but it's not. It's God's job to provide for us, He's the Great Provider!!" Those words of wisdom stuck with me and now God is proving them to me.

In "Jabez" the author tells this story (this is written in my words):

One day a man dies and goes to heaven where Saint Peter greets him, then takes him on a tour. He shows him the streets of gold and all the buildings made of precious stones but there's one building that Saint Peter doesn't take him in. That's the one the man wants to go in. Saint Peter says," I think we should go see this instead." "Can we please go in that building?" the man asks. With a sigh, Saint Peter takes him into the ten story high building. The man walks in and sees boxes upon boxes stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Upon closer examination, he notices they are in sections with names. Getting excited, he asks Saint Peter if he has a section. Saint Peter says , " Yes, but I don't think you really want to see it." " Oh please!!" the man says in his excitement. So Saint Peter shows him his section and the man gasps when he sees how high the boxes are stacked and how many rows he has. With excitement he grabs a box and opens it. Confusion spreads through him and he turns to Saint Peter and says, " I don't understand." Saint Peter sighs and says,"These are all the blessings God had for you but you never asked."

God wants to bless us, I believe that, He wants to bless us big. Have you asked God to bless you lately? Go spend time with Him, pray that he would bless you and while He's at why doesn't he bless you INDEED! Amen.