When blessings turn into curses. We’ve all been there. We have something, or even do something for so long that we get used to it. What once was exciting and new, becomes a curse instead of the blessing that it was meant to be. What we once loved becomes a chore, a weight that we want to get out from under. A blessing turned to curse.
When Blessings Turn Into Curses
Like Thanksgiving turkey dinner. It tastes so good! We love the steaming turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. The delicious stuffing with tendrils of steam as we take it out of the oven, we can’t wait to eat it. A few days later the whole family groans at the leftovers made over once again into something new.
When Blessings Become Insignificant
Maybe in our race to get to where God is taking us, the provision and blessings that we’ve already experienced becomes insignificant. Somewhere in our good intentions and need to push ahead the answered prayers become lost in the never-ending need for the next answer and see to the whole road map, with a detailed agenda.
Praising God For Our Blessings
We want to have all the answers and know every step before it’s time to make it. We wish to move on our time table, to our schedule and take the control into our fallible hands instead of leaving it in the hands of the Creator of Time. Instead of praising God, and being thankful for what God has already done for us and thanking Him that he’s already worked out the next answer.
We find the perfect example of this in Numbers 21:4-5: Then they traveled from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people wanted to give up because of the long way. They spoke against God and Moses, saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? For there are no food and no water. And we hate this bad food.” (NLV)
If we back up to Exodus 16:2-5 we find that the “bad food” the Israelites are complaining about is actually God meeting their need the last time they cried out “Why didn’t you kill us in Egypt, where all of our needs were met instead of bringing us out here to die?”
It became insignificant that God had brought them this far. The provision -each time God provided when they were hungry when they were thirsty, every time they found themselves with their backs against the wall with no way out and He made a way- has lost value. And then they begin to grumble and complain about the very same thing they had originally considered a blessing. The wonder has worn off, and what started off as a blessing – an answer to prayer that had been asked for so many years- has now become a burden to them.
Counting Your Blessings When Things Get Hot
They’re hot, they’re tired and maybe this trip isn’t as easy as they thought it was going to be. It’s easy to be critical of these Old Testament characters, buried by time and unable to refute our words, but how often do we react like this?
Counting your Blessings When It Gets Old
How often when the newness, the excitement, wears off of the blessing we’ve been praying for that we grow discontent. We pray our hearts out, desperate for God to hear and provide, to open doors. But once He does, and we’ve lived in it for a while we realize that the weight of what we’ve wanted is more then we expected. The Israelites wanted to be free, but they weren’t expecting it to weigh so much.
Maybe you wanted that promotion, but once you got it and lived in it for a while you realized the responsibility, and the personal cost was greater than you thought it would be. Or as a single adult, you thought it was going to be easy raising kids, but now that you’re here it’s harder than you thought it would be.
Scripture says that the Israelites began to grumble a) against the people God had placed in leadership roles around them, and b) against God himself, saying why have you brought us out here to die. Have you noticed how often our internal thoughts become negative and eventually spill over our lips? God doesn’t care about me… He doesn’t see me. He’s not going to come through.
A common theme through the Exodus story is the people’s waiting for the next step, the next piece of God’s provision, and grumbling against God when it doesn’t match what they think the timetable should be. Why is it our natural reaction to wait is grumbling? When we have to stand in line, we grumble. If we have to wait for someone else to be served first, we grumble. In the event that we get stuck in traffic, we grumble.
Counting Your Blessings When The Wonder Wears Off
So quickly the blessings that got us to this point are forgotten, the moments of praise after the provision are lost in the hunger for more and we find ourselves like the Israelites grumbling. Why is it that once the wonder wears off it becomes a curse? Why can’t it continue to be a blessing? Could it be that when our focus shifts and instead of seeing all of the times He’s come through, all of the answers to prayer that got us to this point we focus on the rest of the journey? When our focus shifts, so does our thankfulness. Our hearts go from thanking God for always seeing us through, to complaining because we don’t have the answer to the next step.
When We Get Used To The Blessing
We get used to those blessings being there and then we look around and see what everyone else has and we begin to grumble about what we don’t have compared to what our neighbor down the street has.
Exodus 20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (NAS)
What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today. What would you have left? Thankfulness shouldn’t be a once a year type of thing that we profess on a holiday, but an every day of your life thing. It should be as natural as drawing in a breath full of air.
Forgetting The Blessing – Getting Caught Up In The World
So often we as Christians get so caught up in the world we don’t realize that the things we have prayed for have become a curse. We all say we are so thankful for what God has given us but is that always true? When was the last time we TRULY thanked God for what he has given us from the house we live in every day to the clothing on our backs or the device you are reading this on?
When was the last time you thanked God for allowing you to hear the birds singing in the trees or the butterfly fluttering in your path or the summer breeze on your skin or the amazing sunshine, Or for waking you up this morning?
Not Just The Big Things
We shouldn’t just be thanking God for parting the Red Sea in our lives but the stuff that we may consider little. Let God work out the next step, stop trying to push ahead, God’s already brought you this far. He’s already provided over and over for you, He won’t abandon you now. Thank Him for the last thing He did for you, thank Him that He is going to keep providing for you because He has your best at heart.
“Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB),
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission. www.Lockman.org”
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New Life Version, copyright © 1969 and 2003. Used by permission of Barbour Publishing, Inc., Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. All rights reserved.
Before you go, check out these other posts:
- I see you
- When the World Says, The Job Is Too Big
- What Would Happen?
- Does God Give Us More Than We Can Handle?
- Follow Your Dreams
- Courage
- Believing The Worst
- A Nation With The Soul Of The Church
- I Have Cared For You
- What is Keeping You On The Bench?
- I’m Done Being Afraid
- Kissing Fear Goodbye and Making A Splash
- Let Your Light So Shine – Sequins At Sonic
- We Aren’t Worthy
- Revive My Heart In This Desert Place
- My Heart Responds, “I’m Coming!”
- Secure Your Own Mask
- Author Of My Story
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