Learning to Be Blessed

Last September, I found myself in a waiting room for a dentist that I'd never heard of, in an office I had formerly known nothing about, waiting for a lunch break appointment that I’d been penciled in for the night before. I was in desperate need of a root canal and had been for probably a couple months by then but I didn’t have the insurance to cover it. The night before I was in so much pain I was in tears. My mom reached out to a dentist she knew of through work and he got me in right away. As I sat in his waiting room listening to other patients schedule their appointments weeks in advance for dentists they had already met, I couldn’t help but be struck by the oddity of my situation. The other thing that was blatantly obvious to me was that, as awkward as it was to get help from a stranger, this was God’s way taking care of me. The dentist billed my insurance and did the emergency work at no cost to me and then walked me down the hall to the School of Dental Medicine so they could start the root canal very day. Though I wanted to take care of myself and keep my pride in check, I was in a desperate and humbling predicament in those early days. God started teaching me the hard way how to ask for help as I was forced to lean on the generosity of others.

No one likes to be in a desperate situation. No one likes to feel humbled. No one likes to have to set aside their pride and ask for help, especially not from people you barely know. But it is precisely in your time of greatest need that you are most connected to God and others. Your need is not only an opportunity for you to be blessed by God and others, but for others to be blessed by helping you. And God is blessed when his children help one another in his name!

It is when we are the most displaced that we are in the best place to experience God’s grace. The storm you are walking through right now is a rich opportunity for God to bless you. If you are walking through the depths of a trial right now, I know that’s the last thing you want to hear, that might even feel unbelievable. Going through a crisis that strips your pride away is the last thing anyone wants to do. When it happened to me, I tried to cling to every scrap of dignity I could. But Jesus never left me, he braved the darkest parts of life with me and he used my desperation as a platform to show me how I could be satisfied in him. And, like this dentist situation, time and time again, God raised up his people to care for my needs and bless me. I’ve had people regularly check in on my house in another state. Church friends let us borrow their truck so we could move the rest of my stuff out of the house at a lower cost. My realtor was willing to take half her commission to help me get the house sold. People that I never expected gifted me financially to help me get back on my feet. I could go on, and on, and on… Each time someone helped me, I was reminded that God cared for me and would continue to carry me through my time of need. God can use those times when we are most hurting and needy to show us just how loved and blessed we really are.

Having a need provides an opportunity for God’s people to show up and do God’s work and in turn they are also blessed. In the Kingdom of God, both the helper and the helped are blessed. God blesses his children not only by giving to them but by allowing them to partake in the joy of giving. There’s a reason why it feels good to help others, we are joining in heavenly work! When we help someone in need, we are getting to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I once thanked someone for helping me and they responded with, “Thank you for letting us be a blessing.” They weren’t being sarcastic. They weren’t just chanting a corny saying. They truly meant it, and it stuck with me. Because of the love of God that this person had in their heart, they were able to give and it was truly a blessing to be able to be a blessing to them. The thing is, when God’s people show up, willing to do God’s work, everyone gets a glimpse of God at work and both those who give and those who receive are blessed by it. It is a blessing to be a blessing.

Not only are both parties blessed by helping, but God is blessed when his children bless one another! God is blessed by the one who helps and God is blessed by the one in need. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." God is blessed when, in our weakness, we rely more fully on his power. And God is blessed by the one who helps those in need. Matthew 25:40 says, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” And as the one in need learns to trust God in their weakness and the one giving partakes in God’s work, God is glorified by it all! And the crazy thing is, all this Kingdom work started with someone being in need.

As the coronavirus has already greatly impacted the world, it’s been interesting to see how people have been forced to rely on each other for help. Pride has been set aside, even by businesses and corporations, so everyone can work together to stop the spread of a virus. Families in quarantine and elderly or immunocompromised have had to rely on friends to bring them groceries. Hospitals have had to rely on the public for donations of vital medical materials. Local grocery stores and restaurants have partnered together and hired each other’s employees because one place has high demand and the other has none. People are calling more, texting more, video chatting more, etc. Though this crisis has isolated us, in many ways it has also brought us closer together. I believe that as people are bonding together, even if it’s from a distance, and helping each other, that God is being blessed and glorified by it all. The future from here is still very much unknown. Perhaps some of your lives have changed a result of this virus, either from loss of a loved one, loss of a job, etc. But as we head into an unknown future, remember that your need is an opportunity for blessing, it’s a blessing to be a blessing, and God will be glorified by it all.