God’s Blessings Even During the Hard Times

¹¹Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.  ¹²The LORD hath been mindful of us: he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron.  ¹³He will bless them that fear the LORD, both small and great. -Psalm 115:11-13(KJV) 

Psalm 115 is a reminder of how the Lord has promised to bless us.  Our problem comes when we fail to open our hands and our hearts and receive the blessings the Lord intends for us.  We often equate problems and crises with the absence of blessings.  Why can’t God bless us in the middle of our most serious problems, our darkest days, and our most desperate hours?  According His Word He does and He will!   

I was thinking of the Russian man I read about who was arrested for being a believer and spent years in a Russian Gulag.  Every day he would sit and pray, and one day another prisoner asked him how he could pray every day to be released from the gulag knowing it probably wasn’t going to happen. The man looked up from his prayers and replied, “Who said I am praying to be released?  I am praying for God to bless me while I am here.”  This is the faith to trust God even in the worst kind of circumstances.  I am literally being held prisoner, yet I will trust God and expect His blessings.   

Remember that wealth is a relative term.  Many of us when compared with a Bill Gates or a Donald Trump it may not look like we have much.  Yet when we are compared with countless people in the world who live day to day without even the basic necessities, living in cardboard shacks, eating what they can scrounge from other peoples’ trash, and their only clothes are what they are wearing, we are the ones who are like millionaires.  I have plenty to eat every day, more clothes than I can wear in a week, a car to drive, and a warm, dry place to sleep each night.   

God can and will bless us beyond what we would have believed possible and He will bless us in the midst of our difficulties.  Walk in faith and the blessings and power of God and we then bless others around us by our faith and commitment.  We in turn are blessed beyond measure.  One of the greatest blessings we have in the Kingdom of God is being a blessing to others.  Whatever our station or position in life and regardless of what we are going through we can be blessed and we can be a blessing to others.  This is God’s promise to us.   

Do not despair if you are going through hard times.  Trust God and continue looking to Him.  The Lord will bless us even in our darkest hour.  We have Jesus, and He is enough – more than enough to sustain us through the trials of life.  Be encouraged and be of good cheer.  The Lord is with us.