Blessed by GodIhe Atụ

Seeking the Blessing of God

God desires to bless His children, but He also wants His children to ask for the blessings He desires to bestow. In Matthew 7:7-8, we are told to ask, seek, and knock. Those are words of action. There is nothing passive about asking, seeking, or knocking. These are activities that we engage in to receive the blessings of God.

It is interesting to consider why God might want us to ask for those blessings He wants to give us. I believe there are three primary reasons. First, it will build a relationship. As we spend time before God, asking, seeking, and knocking, our relationship with Him is growing. It becomes more real and intimate as we ask and seek and then receive what we have asked from God. We realize all the more who God is in His great love for us. Second, we will more likely recognize our blessings and be able to identify them as coming from our loving Heavenly Father if we engage in the process of asking Him for what we need. If everything that we might ask for was given before we even knew we needed it, we might easily take for granted our blessings and never even consider them as blessings or as coming from the heart of God. Thirdly, it builds our faith when we pray and then receive an answer to our prayers. As faith increases, fears decrease. As faith grows, depression fades. As faith grows, so does joy because we are no longer looking only at the circumstances around us but to our unseen God, whom we trust. Our feelings become determined more by our growing faith rather than our fluctuating circumstances.

God does want to bestow His blessings on us, but He also wants us to seek those blessings. This is not for His benefit, however, but for our own. The asking, seeking, and knocking of prayer is an opportunity for added blessings. God not only desires to bless our lives but also to bestow those blessings in a way that will maximize our benefit!