Overtaken by Blessings

Once when I was in Ireland, there was a six-year-old boy whose parents gave him some potatoes to plant. He planted his potatoes, and a week later, he went outside to see if they were growing. There was no sign of growth. Two weeks later, he still saw nothing, so he dug them up to see if they were sprouting at all. In the end, he dug them up three or four times, and they never grew!

Some Christians are like that little boy. They plant their potatoes of faith, then dig them up to see if they are growing. The essence of faith is to let God grow us. We meet the conditions, but God fulfills the promise and blesses us. Deuteronomy 28:2 says to those who meet God’s conditions:

“All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”

I love the word “overtake.” It is not for us to run after the blessings; they run after us. We can go to bed at night and ponder what blessings will have caught up with us by the time we wake up in the morning!

In the same way, Matthew 6:33 tells us:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

We do not seek the “things”; we seek the kingdom. Then, God adds all the things we need.

These, then, are the conditions for receiving God’s abundance: first, our motives and attitudes must be right; second, we must exercise faith; third, we must honor God, our parents, and God’s ministers by giving; fourth, we must practice right thinking, speaking, and acting; and fifth, we must let God add in His way and His time. If we meet these conditions, we can be certain that God’s abundant blessings will overtake us. This is one way that we enter into God’s blessing.