Deacon's Beacon . . .
by Jan Brown, Deacon
(from September 2000 Tidings)

God Wants to Bless Us

Having just returned from Indiana where the temperature was in the mid-seventies during the day, I was doing errands and grumbling every time I had to get out of the car and go into the heat of a Florida afternoon. While I was in the car, my favorite Christian radio station was helping to keep my attention diverted from my destinations. At one point, I got into the car and tuned into the middle of a conversation with no idea who was speaking or what he was speaking about. However, he was giving an analogy of many of us in our Christian walk and a participant in the Iditarod race in Alaska.

Toward the end of the race, the participant noticed that the dogs were getting tired. The driver, feeling sorry for the dogs, decided to let them go free and to get behind the sled and push it to the end of the race. An idea that simply won't work!

How often do we fail to go to God with our needs or requests because we feel we are not important enough to get His attention, or that He is too busy or tired for the "small stuff" or, we simply feel "we can do it ourselves." God wants to bless us and supply all our needs. He wants us to be specific in our requests. Nothing is too small or insignificant for our God. He is waiting for us to ask Him for our specific needs or requests. Oh, He will not supply all our greeds - but He is waiting to bless us with all that we need.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:7-8 and again in Luke 11:9-10, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." God is waiting to give us the desires of our hearts. We do not have because we do not ask!

Joyfully in Jesus,
Jan