If…

Our, Golden Retriever, Bess, loves to have her ball thrown so that she can chase it. She trots along beside me, with her ball firmly in her mouth, looking at me as if to say, “If you throw my ball, I’d love to run after it”. “Bess”, I say, “You drop the ball, I’ll throw it for you”. “No”, she replies, “If you throw it, I’ll drop it”. “But, Bess, It doesn’t work like that. I can’t throw it until you’ve dropped it”. “I know”, says Bess, “But sometimes you take it away”.

Have you noticed how so many of God’s promises are conditional? If we confess our sins, He will forgive us (1 John 1:9). ‘All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God’ (Deuteronomy 28:2); ‘If my people… will turn from their wicked ways … then I will forgive their sin and heal their land’ (2 Chronicles 7:14).

God so wants to bless us with everything we need. But He can’t until we do our part. And our part often includes dropping something that we are hanging on to. It’s as if He says to us, “Put what you’re hanging on to into my hands and see what happens”. Yes, if we drop it, He may take it away, because He knows that it is better if He does. All too often, the things we hang on to stop us from receiving what He longs to give us, and from fulfilling His better purposes.

It’s a bit of a challenge, isn’t it, to take God’s conditions really seriously – to do what He requires, knowing that when we do, we put ourselves in the place where we can receive all that He promises to give us.

I guess it saddens Him when we stop Him blessing us because we won’t stop hanging on to what we need to drop.

Prayer: Father, please show me those things in my life that You want me to let go of. Forgive me for hanging on to them. I acknowledge that, as long as I do that, I miss out on the blessings You want to pour into my life. I need Your help if I’m to let them go. Please give me the grace to begin to do that today. Amen.