Blessed and Highly Favored

The video on social media showed an accident that looked like it would have been fatal. The car was upside down and a metal guardrail was going 3-4 feet out the back end of the trunk of a small car, through the front windshield, right where the driver would be sitting. The car was clearly totaled, and the metal took up what little space was left between the roof, now on the ground, and the undercarriage, now facing the sky. There were no words at first, just a video of that devastating scene. In your heart, you just knew, no one could have survived that without serious injury.

The videographer claimed this was his daughter’s car and she had called him about the accident. He turned the camera to show her daughter, who was clearly shaken, but without seemingly a scratch. The father started crying behind the camera. He was exclaiming about God’s goodness. He was proclaiming the mighty miracle of a God who saves us. God is so good.

Would that father, would I, be exclaiming about a good God if the situation had taken a different turn? Would we walk upon a fatal accident and say, “OH God is so good!” God is good when he saves us in miraculous ways and God is good when we don’t like the outcomes.

It’s for this reason that I don’t really care for the word, “Blessed.” We see it everywhere. It’s on our shirts, on our bags, on our social media profiles. I saw it sitting behind a car in the McDonald’s drive through yesterday morning. “Blessed.”

What does it mean to be “blessed”? I know what it means to me, but I’m not sure the rest of the world knows what I mean when I use it. I think the world gets confused easily by our thankfulness to a good God. They see us praise Him when our business is successful and thank Him when our children are cured of diseases. We wear our “blessed” gear with our apple watches and our designer purses and it confuses those around us. Do we wear our “blessed girl” clothes to thank God because we have children and a home and money? Would we scream in the streets that we are “blessed” right after a lost job and an empty savings account? Are we blessed when our child isn’t cured and our home is destroyed?

How hard must it be for a childless couple to read a pregnancy announcement that says, “We prayed for a child. We are so blessed!” How hard must it be for a father to read, “God is so good to have saved my daughter from this accident,” when his own did not survive. How difficult it must be for the world to understand God’s blessings when we continually put them alongside our earthly gains and successes.

I don’t ever share that I am “blessed” or “highly favored,” even if I know that I am both of those things. I also know that I’m a broken sinner who is no better than anyone else. The love of God was offered as freely to me as to every person around me, including the addict, the homeless, the childless, the widow. I’m thankful I’m married, but death will one day part us. I am not blessed just because I am a mother; one day they will leave my arms. I’m thankful to have a house, a car and a job, but those too can be lost.

It's not fair to tout that I’m “blessed and highly favored” in a setting that provides no context to the world around me. I’m a child of God because I accepted His gift of salvation. So can you. So can anyone. I am a creation of the Creator. So is everything else we see. I am not special apart from God’s hand to create me, and Christ’s blood to save me, and the Holy Spirit’s ability to work in me.

The blessings I have are eternal ones. The blessings I have received can never be moved, never be destroyed, never be shaken. I am blessed to be counted one of God’s children. I am blessed to have the love, protection, comfort, provision of my heavenly Father. Regardless of what happens in this life, my relationship with my Savior cannot be shaken. My successes, my gains, my losses, my failures, my highs, and my lows do not change the goodness of God.  

I want the world to know that God is for them in their darkest hour. God is for them in their successes but in their broken places, as well. We can be blessed even when we have lost everything because the blessings of the Lord are those which withstand rain and torrents, losses and gains, destruction upon destruction. The kind of blessings that I can claim are ones which I have not deserved or done anything to gain. Whatever skill is given me, I did not create in myself. Whatever power is display through me was given only out of my weakness. Whatever salvation has come was because there was One greater who could provide it.

I want the world to know this is for them, too. Blessings are not fleeting, but eternal. They are not exclusive, but for the joy and the eternity of all who claim them through Christ.

Go today and be blessed because God has given you access to the fullness of His love, His power, His salvation, His redemption, His joy, His purposes, His fulfillment, His glory and His eternity. That’s where the blessings live.