We seek blessing and prosperity. We seek good, contented lives full of health, length and advancement. Yet, amidst the poverty, the corruption, the desolation and the strife, it is easy to feel unsettled, scared and utterly confused, asking,Where is the road map? Where are the rules? What is the rhyme or reason to living in blessing rather than desolation?
The world proposed to know. The world has marketed us products and services, paradigms and mindsets. Some of these worked for a season. We got bigger houses, nicer cars, and lower interest rates. We “made” ourselves, and we felt proud. But, let’s face the music, folks: We have fallen flat on our faces.
Those old ways, those manufactured, merchandised ways to prosperity that swelled in the ’80s… well, those ways just aren’t working anymore. We need help. We need answers to what went wrong and how we get out of this mess. We need solutions. We need God.
The Bible provides answers. It provides solutions that have been tested and proven since the beginning of time across nations, ethnicities and social statuses. So, what does the Bible tell us about prosperous lives? The Bible shows us the way to prosperity.
“True humility and fear of the Lord lead to riches, honor, and long life” (Proverbs 22:4). God tells us, in order to be blessed, we need true humility.
God is God. The Bible tells us again and again that He does not change. He does what He says He will do. His very nature is true and constant. He can’t go back on His Word or His principles. He doesn’t change, but we change, folks. We change, and we need His help to change for the better.
God’s heart’s desire as a dad is to bless us and give us good things. Dads out there, you resonate with this, right? The reason you want blessing, you want answers, you want solutions is because you want to provide your family, your kids, with good things. That’s exactly what God wants for us and even more so, because His very nature is love – all love and no sin – so His love towards His kids, for us, has no limits.
Here is how Jesus describes God’s fatherly love and provision for us: “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:11-13).
It is God’s desire to bless us. So He shows us the way to blessing: In order to attain riches, honor and long life, we must have true humility and fear of the Lord.
Therefore, out of His love for us, God does what He needs to do in us, in our lives, by changing the posture of our hearts, to get us where we need to be to attain these blessings. God humbles us to bless us.
When God humbles you, let Him. He is not like man that He would break you out of selfish ambition as humans do. Do not believe He is out to hurt you or to take from you. He humbles us for our gain, to bless us and to give lavishly to us, even by adding to the length and goodness of our days. There is a blessed, prosperous life for us, yet we need to take a journey through humility to get to that blessing.
If you are on the journey of humility, hang on. Don’t let go of God. Cling to your heavenly father. Hold on tight, like a child in the arms of her father wading into the ocean. He won’t let you go of you, and the journey can actually be exhilarating.
Though this process may be filled with tears, it is also full of healing, purification and blessing. I have journeyed through the process of humility towards blessing. And, I want to encourage you in it, in these ways: Thank God for loving you enough to walk you to blessing, and resist the urge to grab for the world’s solutions. (Remember the world’s track record! Yikes.) The Lord’s record of loving and giving is proven.
Humility is a trip worth taking. Once you’ve journeyed through, don’t be surprised to see numerous areas of your life align in your favor, because “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
Sarah Guldalian 