Stored Up

Years ago when I took the StrengthsFinder® test, I discovered that one of my “signature strengths” was “input.” Basically this meant that I was a collector – of facts, trinkets and whatever else I set my fancy on. My parents no doubt already knew this as, at different times in my life, they had to contend with my shell collection, my rock collection, and my collection of key chains. As I grew older, my “collections” turned into file folders of quotations  & articles, boxes of pictures, a penchant for saving small artifacts from significant times in my life, and mounds and mounds of books. Collections were my way of setting things aside, in case I might need them at some other point in my life.

The challenge with collections, however, is that they must be stored, and storage is limited. Additionally while the articles are filed away, or the key chains are in their container, it may seem as if they serve no useful purpose. They are simply waiting to be accessed, waiting for when they are needed.

Similarly, God is a collector of sorts. However, what He’s storing far exceeds anything that we can put away. God is storing up blessings for His people (Ps. 31:19). He is gathering up good things, setting them aside for the day that they are needed. Unlike me, God has no limits to how much He can collect. He gathers them, and He apportions them for just the right moment. He knows that in a year we will need some encouragement. He knows that tomorrow we will need a comforting word from a friend. And He waits; storing up those blessings, eager to pour them out on His children.

This can provide such comfort to us. If we are going through a tough time, we know that God has blessings that He is waiting to give us, when He knows that they will have their greatest effect. If we are the recipient of His gifts, we can thank Him for His generosity in preparing those blessings in advance. And regardless of our circumstances, all His children can eagerly look forward to the blessings He has in store for us in His Kingdom.

I can tell you from personal experience that storing things only makes sense if one day they will serve some useful purpose. With God, we can be confident that whatever He has in store, He will use – for His glory and our good.

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The Proper Result

It’s not unusual to want God to be good to us.

We want Him to give us good things, remove trials from our lives, and prepare the path that we need to walk.

We want these things because we want our lives to be easy, and “fulfilling.” We want our lives to be comfortable.

And while it may be natural to want these things,  it is perhaps equally as natural to focus on the wrong outcome of them.

More often than not, we want God to be good for what it does for us. But God’s goodness is not just about us. Perhaps it would be fair to say that God’s goodness is not primarily about us. God’s goodness is about Him.

The Psalmist got this. In Pslam 67:1-2 it is written:

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.

Did you catch it? The purpose of God’s graciousness and blessing is so that His fame may increase; it is so that as a result, more people will know Him.

That means that the blessings God gives us aren’t about us, they are about Him. One of the ways that God uses our lives to make Himself known is through the good gifts He grants us.

If we had this focus, would it change the things we asked for? If we were concerned with more people knowing God as a result of the blessings He gave us, would it alter our requests?

I tend to think it would. I think we would be less concerned with a comfortable life, and more focused on a God-honoring one. I think, like the Psalmist, our concern would be with God’s face shining upon us – that God would be pleased with the life that we live. And that as a result, God would be made known.

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