One who is faithful in a very little, is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you with true riches? 

Luke 16:10-11, ESV

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise; be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. 

Psalms 100:4, KJV

 

Are God's blessings living up to your satisfaction - are they good enough for you?

 

I know that this sounds like an audacious question - and it is! The very idea that God's blessings would be "sniffed" at by us because we consider them to be subpar is outrageous. Yet, when you really think about it, that is exactly how we sometimes act.

 

I was around a group of investors in recent days whose investment had shot up to records heights. It had not only reached an all-time record price, but then it turned around and doubled from there. Now, you would have thought that they would have been ecstatic, overjoyed, and perhaps even thankful to the One who allowed them to experience such success in the first place.

 

If you'd have thought that, though, you would have been wrong.

 

Now, there were some who were happy. There were sone who even thought to be thankful to God for their good blessings. But most, on the other hand, were less than happy. They had an "is that all?" attitude. They thought it should be much more and many even thought that the reason it wasn't much more was because other people were cheating them. And though some were truly thankful, many were distraught, many were filled with anxiety that they might lose what they had gained, and some were just plain mad.

 

Can you imagine anything like that?

 

This past week, in an area of the country that had been experiencing a little bit of dry weather, we finally caught a break - it snowed! It was a nice snow at that; about 6 inches deep and the wind hadn't drifted it all into one place or another. It is by far the best moisture we have had in many months, yet the reaction to it was a bit odd. As we stood in our groups talking about this newly arrived weather, the comments were somewhat surprising. It turns out that this snow was only about half of what we had been "promised". On top of that it turns out that it was an inferior grade of snow, with far too little moisture content. It turns out that the cold weather that came with this snow was also quite an inconvenience. We all had our own contributions to this critique, but the feeling was pretty much unanimous: This was an inferior snow in all aspects!

 

Now, let me ask you this: If you were the one who provided this snow, would you be pleased with the reaction? Would you be likely to see that people were unsatisfied and then try your best to make sure that they were more satisfied the next time? It's very fortunate indeed that we are not the givers of snow or of profits. If we were and the reaction to these gifts was a begrudging and half-hearted appreciation, band also one in which were let known that people were not entirely happy about it, well we just might make sure that was the last gift we ever gave to these ungrateful recipients.

 

Fortunately, God is not like that. He is patient with us and more than willing to give us time to repent, but we have to know this: When we fail to receive His small gifts with appreciation, and then if we fail to catch ourselves and repent for this ungrateful attitude, then we need to understand that He will not give us the larger blessings that we desire.

 

This life comes with many tests, and one of those tests is how we receive our blessings. If grateful - if we realize that we did not deserve these gifts in the first place, but we marvel and rejoice at God's graciousness towards us, then I believe we can expect to receive even further blessings in the future, However, if we come to His abundant feast and complain about the quality of the food... I leave it to you to decide. Do you think that God will be pleased with you? Do you think that He will then reward you with eternal blessings?

 

The fact is that we deserve none of these blessings from God. If the truth be told what we really deserve is punishment, not more blessings. Yet God is good! He wants to give us good gifts, but He also wants them to be used in the right way, and He does have that rightful expectation that we be grateful to Him for all of our blessings. Because, when it comes down to it, if we sniff at his gifts of wealth and if we sneer at His gifts of moisture, we must not expect Him to rush to make things right in our eyes.

 

We cannot fail to be thankful for the little things and then hope to be rewarded with the big things. It's a lesson we need to learn. I know at least I do,,, how about you?