Day 25 - Blessings bring Responsibility

"God gives us the ingredients for our daily bread,

but He expects us to do the baking."

Sunday morning as all the world sleeps something keeps popping into my mind from my reading in The Daily Walk Bible yesterday, "blessings bring responsibility."  I am reading Exodus on my daily walk through the Bible, and the children of Israel are on the move aiming for the promised land. But, in spite of the many miracles they have witnessed thus far, they are still griping and complaining wanting to go back to Egypt, back to slavery. This time they are complaining about starving, when in reality they have provisions all around them. But then it's easier to become accustomed to a daily meal being provided even if they are slaves being prodded by a whip. Go figure!

So, once more, God in His desire for His people divinely intervenes and provides sustenance for these griping, complaining people, first in the form of manna from heaven and then quail that falls from the sky.  So he "blessed" them when He could have blitzed them. At this point Moses may have wanted to raise the staff and go poof them out of existence but not God. He's more loving and merciful to degenerates. This is where the quotation comes in, "blessings bring responsibility."  Although God provided for their needs, they had to pick it up, prepare it, and eat it.

And so it is with us today...we balk, because we have to go to work each day, prepare meals for our families, or mow the lawn once a month.  These are "blessings," but we fail to see them as such. We are so used to having things done for us.  We can eat out at fine restaurants or go through the drive through at McDonald's; have all the modern appliances or hire someone to do our housework or outdoors work.  We can even pay someone to do the work we are supposed to be doing, which is less than honest in some respects.  The point is that we complain so much that do not even perceive the gifts we have been given. We are too caught up in our own selfishness and self-absorption that we turn a blind eye, because we think we deserve more and better than being grateful for all we do have, even if it is little.

In our society today there is so much crime, hopelessness, and utter contempt for those in authority. I thank God every day for my upbringing, for discipline, for being taught the value of a man's word and for having respite for others regardless of the manner in which I am treated. In this age children bear children without knowing the first thing about parenting. Or parents become so busy trying to earn a living or develop a career that they lose sight of the blessings they have before them.  We want the best for our families when the best is our attention, our gentle correction, our training them to become people who are honest, compassionate, respectful and grateful.

In our jobs we want more...a higher salary, a more prestigious title, we want...we want! So our response often times is doing only enough to get a pat on the shoulder, to achieve recognition, and to brown nose our way to the top. Sorry if that expression seems less than appropriate, but it simply means "to curry favor; to flatter and pamper in order to gain approval and advantage; behave obsequiously (characterized by or showing servile complaisance)." Never cognizant of the fact that we could be standing on the corner of Guadalupe and Alameda Streets in Santa Fe or elsewhere hoping someone would hire us for the day, or renting rather than owning or homeless on the street. Thank God we have a job so we can rent! Thank God we have legs or a mind that allows us to work. We eat steak with sour cream, and we crave caviar.

This is a sad commentary, but an honest evaluation of human kind for each of us.  So I purpose to keep my focus clear by daily blogging as I journey gratefully realizing how many blessings I do have. Simple things reminding me of people, places, things I've been privileged to do or hope to do. We wake up every morning, able to see, but even if we cannot see nonetheless we wake up feeling, knowing, sensing a new day to choose to do better, to start anew, to experience "being."

I want my life hidden in Christ, and I want my human desires to be the desires He has for my life. Believe me I know what happens being outside of His will, so please trust me on this... His way is the best and only way to achieve happiness and contentment. And gratitude speaks loudly in this calloused, empty, void of feeling world we are part of today.

It is my desire that today we will seek to live the life of privilege as God's own chosen ones in letting our "lifesong sing" regardless of what happens today.