Do you ever feel like some blessings will never come to you? It’s easy to get caught up in ideas like that. Life is challenging and confusing, and when you need help, you might feel that God has suddenly become distant.
Let me assure you right now that He’s not distant in any way. God is personally involved in your life, and, regardless of how distant He may seem at times, is never more than a few words from you.
But sometimes we do have to wait for blessings. And when those times of waiting come, Satan often throws discouragement in our faces. He wants us to feel alone and lost so that we stop turning to God altogether.
Our job is to make sure Satan doesn’t convince us to give up on God. After all, God stays with us to strengthen and protect us. He doesn’t give up on us but instead reaches out for us constantly so we can always turn back to Him. And we can trust, in every circumstance, that He is doing what is best for us.
I’m not going to say I’m an expert at this, but there are a few things that I think can help align us to God’s timing:
3 Things to Do While You Wait for God’s Blessings
1. Ask
Honestly, the simplest thing to do is ask for God’s help and blessings. Some blessings are contingent upon us asking for them. For example, if you’ve lost your wallet, you may not find it until you pray for help. That blessing of finding something that’s been lost may not always depend on you asking, but I’ve heard of many examples where that has been the case.
In other cases, you may already be asking God for help, and if you are, keep doing it. That’s not to say that you should pester God or demand things of Him, but ask Him for the help you need.
Asking can go further though. You might need to stop asking for help and start asking different questions, such as:
- Is there something I need to do to gain this blessing?
- Am I living my life in a way that’s pleasing to God?
- Is this a blessing I actually need? Or is it distracting me from something better?
Asking God questions can lead to a lot of growth and revelation. But make sure that you also look for the answers and blessings that God is giving you. Just sitting and waiting for a beam of light to show you the perfect answer probably won’t work. God often answers and helps us through other people, the scriptures, and church lessons/sermons.
We are expected to ask God for help. And we’re expected to learn and grow through our own efforts. Often, answers and blessings are given to us from a combined effort of work on our side and grace on God’s.
2. Qualify
Continuing along that same idea, some blessings require us to qualify for them. An example of this is having the blessing of entering the temple. We can ask all we want, but if we don’t go through the steps necessary to qualify for a temple recommend, we can’t enter the temple.
Sometimes the qualifications are outlined clearly. In the Word of Wisdom, the blessings of health, wisdom, knowledge, and energy are qualified for by our choices. If we choose not to drink tea, coffee, or alcohol, choose not to use tobacco, and choose to eat foods in healthy moderation, then we qualify for those blessings of the Word of Wisdom.
Other times though, the qualifications may not be so clearly outlined. In those cases, the qualifications may be more personal than general. If you aren’t sure how to qualify for certain blessings, asking God what you personally need to do is probably the best option.
3. Endure
Finally, some blessings are simply long in coming. It may be that the time isn’t right for us to receive those blessings. But whatever the reason behind the waiting, we need to trust that God knows what He’s doing and that He will care for our needs at the right time and in the right way.
Waiting for blessings gives us a chance to exercise our faith, patience, and hope in Christ. It’s also possible that this experience of waiting for desired blessings is our qualifying effort for those blessings.
I wish I could give more actionable steps here, but all I can really suggest is a reliance on our God as we live the best life we can. And, if some blessings never come our way, we can trust that God has other blessings in store for us that will be better for us than the ones we thought we wanted.
Blessings Aren’t Always What We Asked For
We all face times in our life where the blessing we want isn’t the one we receive. Sometimes the blessing we want comes later on, sometimes it never comes, but we often have to learn to accept God’s blessings when they aren’t the blessings we were looking for.
A good example of this is Alma (the father of Alma) and his people in Mosiah 24. After converting to the gospel, they were forced to flee or be killed by King Noah. Naturally, they fled and found refuge in the land of Helam.
Their refuge turned out to be temporary when the Lamanites found them and took charge of their city. Wicked men were placed as leaders over them, and forced them to work harder and carry greater burdens.
Alma and his people were prevented from praying audibly, but they still prayed and asked for God’s help. You can imagine what they probably asked: please make our captors leave, please free us, help us fight.
However, though they prayed, Alma and his people were not immediately freed. Instead, they were strengthened so they could handle the extra loads of work they were given. They were given patience so they could be happy in spite of their bondage.
These blessings may not have been the blessings these people were asking for. Or maybe, after asking for freedom and not receiving it, they did ask for strength and patience instead.
Regardless, God did not grant Alma and his people immediate freedom even though they were righteous. Freedom did come eventually, but first, the people suffered and became strong.
In our own lives, we may be given blessings that we didn’t look for or ask for. When we receive those blessings, we need to recognize that they came to us through God’s grace alone. We also need to remember that these blessings serve a purpose in our lives even if we didn’t want them at first.
And maybe all we need is the blessing of strength before we can receive further blessings.
Whatever our situation may be, the one thing that will always be true is our need to rely on and trust our Father in Heaven. We could talk all day about specific qualifications for blessings and how important it is to accept all of God’s blessings, but everything really comes back to trusting in our God and relying on His judgment.
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