PASTOR’S CORNER: Anyway you bless me, I’ll still be satisfied

Now community, today we’re dealing with something that we all are familiar with; something that we all have in common. All of us know something about the blessings of God and all of us want the blessings of God in our lives.

“From the moment that we wake up, until we lay down our head,” in the words of CeCe Winans, we want the blessings of God in our lives because when that happens, something good will always happen to us.

But when you need something from the Lord — and we all do, some more than others — we want God to act on our behalf. Have any of us ever needed something really bad, especially when we were in panic mode? When we do sometimes we let our emotions get the best of us and we act irrationally, desperate or we overreact. In our minds, when we pray and start to think about how God is going to do something or the way that He is going to do it. We already have in our minds what we think God is going to do and act on our behalf. When he doesn’t do it, sometimes we lose our faith, become discouraged and we lose our joy.

But community, today we have to come to grips with the fact that God doesn’t always come when we want him or the way that we want him. That doesn’t change the fact that He has his own timing and that he is always right on time. Let this be an encouragement this morning to all of us. Let’s not tell God what to do or how to do it. We have to come to a place where we appreciate the fact that God knows better than we do. God knows when to bless us and how to bless us.

I don’t know about y’all but my mindset is anyway the Lord blesses me is alright with me because the truth of the matter is I don’t deserve to be blessing no way! In fact, it is only by the grace of God that I have anything (1 Corinthians 15:10). I don’t deserve to be writing this column. I don’t deserve the wife that I have, the children that I have, the church family that I have been blessed with. Some of you who know you are blessed feel the same way because none of us can point to any one thing in our lives and say “I deserve the blessing that I got!”

We ought to be thankful, thankful that we do not get what we really deserve which is eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire!

Sometimes people can get ahead of themselves because they have social standing, education, hold certain positions, get a certain title, or are esteemed highly by man and it is this that causes us to miss out.

Sometimes we need a miracle. Somebody, somewhere needs a miracle this morning. Only a miracle will do. A miracle is beyond man’s control. It is beyond human power. It is such that if God doesn’t do it, it won’t be done. It’s when all of man’s effort has been exhausted; when we have tried everything else and all have failed; when the doctors admit that there is nothing else that they can do; when Madame Mary, the psychics, soothsayers, witch doctors, and fortune tellers admit that they don’t really have the power; a miracle must come from God.

Now let me tell you that God doesn’t do miracles for every reason. We know this because despite the prayers of the righteous, folk, Christian folk are dying every single day from sickness and terminal diseases. God will work a miracle when it works for our good and his glory! But even when He does, it must be done his way.

We do know that leprosy was the most dreaded disease in Israel. It was a death sentence for those who contracted the disease. It was the equivalent to the worst case of cancer today. Your limbs could literally just fall off. Leprosy could be contagious and there was no cure and it proved to be fatal. So, the one who had leprosy in Israel had to leave his family, go and live in a colony with other lepers away from ordinary people.

Naaman, the captain of the host was a leper and needed a miracle (2 Kings 5:1-14). The Syrians had gone out and in battle taken some of the Israelites from Israel, among them a little maid probably under 12 years old. But God had a plan for her life. She said unto her mistress in verse three, there is a prophet in Samaria that can heal my master. So Naaman came with his horses and his chariot and all his stuff and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. Elisha does not go out to meet him, instead, he sends messengers unto him, saying, go and wash in Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall come again to you, sand you shall be clean.

But Naaman got upset and angry, and he leaves in a huff in verse 11. Naaman thought that because he was a great man, a man of success, a dignitary. He said how dare Elisha tells me to go and dip in the dirty Jordan River. His servant persuades him to go to Jordan and dip seven times and his flesh became as clean as a child.

Let all of us say to God “Anyway you bless me Lord, I’ll be satisfied.”

The Rev. George Ellis is the pastor of Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church and can be reached at [email protected].