Are there habits that can rob us of God’s blessings? Could they be things that many of us do without thinking? If so, what are they and what do they look like when they show up in our lives?

Also in today’s post, is it possible for evil and suffering to lead to good? Are there things in our lives that we need to see from an eternal perspective? And others where we must simply trust that God has a plan and purpose when we don’t understand?

And while most of us have favorite teachers and pastors, could some of us be in danger of following men and not God?

Today’s Readings:

Job 33 & 34
Psalm 98.4-9
Proverbs 23.19-21
1 Corinthians 3.1-23

Do You Have Habits that Rob You of God’s Blessings?

Proverbs 23.19-21:

What Keeps Us from God’s Blessings?

For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags (v. 21).

The Book of Proverbs warns us about many lifestyle habits that can keep us from fully enjoying God’s blessings or, worse yet, can ruin our lives. In this verse, Solomon addresses drunkenness, gluttony, and drowsiness.

The drunkard is looking for relief or escape from her troubles, a distraction from what she considers a life of boredom. She thinks it will give her the fun and excitement she craves.

The glutton over-indulges in God’s blessings, whether food or something else.

The lazy person wants ease and relaxation to the point of neglecting his or her responsibilities.

These three character issues show up in different ways. Some are obvious. Among them are those who abuse alcohol or become addicted to drugs. Or those who gorge on food, sometimes purging later. Or it might be the person who refuses to work consistently, preferring to live in Mom and Dad’s basement or spare room.

But could there be other ways that are less obvious?

Other Ways

What about the mom who over-indulges in romance novels or Netflix? She may take care of the physical needs of her children but lives for nap time when she can escape into some exciting, romantic (sometimes steamy) adventure.

She’s missing out on the blessings of God that come from truly enjoying her children at each stage of life. And she often becomes discontented with the husband and life God has given her. Preferring to escape into her fantasy.

Or it might be the dad who is obsessed with video games or sports. He’s living for the weekend when he can don his team’s jersey or play his game for hours.  His children and wife take second place to his escape and he loses out on the joy of family.

It might be parents or spouses who escape into their smartphones or computers, sometimes hour after hour when everyone else has gone to bed, or sadly, while family members sit right beside them. They are missing the opportunity to build genuine, healthy relationships.

It might be the employee who lives for the weekend or the next vacation. She is depriving herself of the satisfaction of a job well done.

Or it could be the child or adult who expects everyone else to wait on him hand and foot or to meet his every need. He or she is missing the blessings that come with service to others.

Exchanging God’s Blessings for What Cannot Satisfy

Proverbs 27.20 says, “… the eyes of man are never satisfied.” We can never get enough of the things the flesh craves including leisure time, new and exciting kinds of entertainment, food, and fun. And escape is only temporary. When we sober up or are forced back into real life the problems are still there, often worse because of our neglect. We end up being left empty and devoid of any peace, joy, or satisfaction.

We have traded God’s blessings for things that can never satisfy. The desire for those things leads to poverty, not just physical poverty, but poverty in relationships and, often, poverty of the soul.

Instead, if we will allow God to fill us spirit, soul, and body, we will find that the things of this world pale in comparison. And we are free to enjoy God’s blessings in their proper place and amount (Eccl. 2.24).

Psalm 90.14 is a great prayer to pray in regard to these things. It says:

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days (ESV).

May that be the cry of our hearts.

Today’s Other Readings:

Job 33 & 34:

Even Evil Can Result in Good

We’ve been reading through the book of Job. After all his losses, the first thing his friends did when they arrived to comfort their friend was just sitting with him. Sometimes that’s the most helpful thing any of us can do. But then one by one they began to speak.

In today’s reading, Elihu, the fifth person in the story, is speaking. He has patiently waited while Job and his other three friends have debated the issue of Job’s sufferings and his integrity or lack thereof, and now he wades in.

While Elihu makes some good observations (we will see in a few chapters that even God did not rebuke him as He did the others), his understanding was still limited. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13.12:

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

There will always be things that we don’t fully understand. We see only a small portion of the tapestry of our lives, our family members’ lives, and the events playing out around us. And even what we do see, we don’t see clearly. So when we go through a test or a trial or we read about some tragedy, we must filter it all through the goodness of God, the sovereignty of God, and the absolute holiness of God.

The Big Picture

When we hear of a child being molested, for instance, and we think, “Why would God allow such a horrible thing?” But what if, as a result, that child got saved, and then she married a Christian man, and his life was impacted by her testimony, causing him to draw closer to God. Then when they had children, they raised them in a godly home, and, as a result, their children were saved, and many of the next generation and the next. Maybe a whole line of people was ultimately impacted by that horrible act, changing the eternal destiny of many. From an eternal perspective, would it be worth it?

But, too often, when something horrible has happened to us, we get hung up on the initial circumstance. We get focused on the unfairness of it all and refuse to trust God and allow Him to do through our trials what only He can do.

I’m not excusing or justifying evil. The person responsible for such a horrible act is still responsible before God. Neither am I saying that we should just ignore those things. The Bible repeatedly tells us that we are to protect the defenseless and help those who have been mistreated. Neither does it mean that perpetrators of evil shouldn’t be punished. Even when we think someone has “gotten away with something,” God is well able to mete out the proper judgment (Rom. 12.19). This is more about how we view God in all of this and whether or not we filter what happens to us through His sovereignty, His goodness, and His other attributes.

Take Job’s Sufferings

Take Job’s sufferings—if we focus on how unfair it was to Job, we will miss so much of what was accomplished. Although Job probably never understood it all, as we’ll see, he came to know God in a deeper way. And hundreds of thousands of us who have read God’s Word have the benefit of witnessing a scene in heaven and gaining a greater understanding of our sufferings and the sufferings of others.

In the meantime, Job’s godly children (assuming they were) went straight to heaven. And Job, though he suffered greatly for a number of months, has been in heaven for several thousand years rejoicing, worshiping, and fellowshipping with all of his children. I wonder how much thought he gives to those few months, except perhaps to reflect on how it deepened his relationship with the Lord!

So, may God help us to keep our eyes on Him in our trials and to trust in His sovereignty. May we remember that there is nothing that happens in our lives that isn’t first filtered through His loving hands.

Psalm 98.4-9:

How the Rivers Clap Their Hands

The psalmist said in this passage “let the sea roar… let the rivers clap their hands … let the hills be joyful.” In Psalm 19 the psalmist said, “the heavens declare the glory of God” and in Psalm 50, “the heavens declare His righteousness.”

How can creation declare, clap, roar, or be joyful? Perhaps it does so as it fills our senses with God’s wonder and reality!

And now to the New Testament.

1 Corinthians 3.1-23:

Followers of Christ Not Men

There was great division in the Corinthian church. Many of its members were more focused on the men who led and taught than on Christ Himself. How easy it is for all of us, with our favorite teachers and pastors and speakers, to get our eyes on them, and not on God and His Word.

While it’s not wrong to have favorite teachers, we don’t want to end up following men instead of God. And we must be good Bereans who search the Scriptures diligently and make sure that what we are being taught is the truth (Acts 17.11). Sometimes those we enjoy hearing are great Bible teachers, men and women who teach the Word of God in a balanced accurate way, but if we’re not careful we can seek to hear those who tell us what we want to believe or hear, rather than the truth.

Itching Ears

Paul, in writing to his disciple, Timothy, said in 2 Timothy 4:

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

We need to pray for our leaders that they will stay faithful to preach the truth, not to please us, but to be faithful to the One who has called them. And we need to pray for ourselves that we would not be like many of the Corinthians who could only handle milk and not solid food from God’s Word (1 Cor. 3.1-4)!

Coming Up:

In the coming days, we will finish the book of Job, spend time in 1 Corinthians, and continue our year-long journey through Psalms and Proverbs. We’ll talk about honoring imperfect parents, the danger in not judging sin and the truth about science and dinosaurs. We’ll, also, look at marriage and divorce, what our heroes say about where our treasure is, and the balance between freedom and stumbling blocks.

I hope you’ll sign up so you don’t miss any of them. You might also like to check out our YouTube channel.

If this post spoke to you, I would love it if you would share it on your favorite social media platform.

And if you don’t already have a copy, you might want to purchase a copy of my eBook, 10 Benefits of Keeping a Spiritual Journal. It’s available on Kindle or in paperback (the paperback has 31 days of blank journaling pages with prompts to help you get started).

Blessings as you grow in Christ,
Donna ♥

Note about this post:

I began blogging through the Bible in 2012 and have done so every year since then. These posts are the product of many edits and additions throughout those years. Some days I make major changes, other days fewer. 

A while ago, I read Jen Wilkin’s book None Like Him about the attributes of God. One is His incomprehensibility. In it, she says, “God is incomprehensible. This does not mean that he is unknowable, but that he is unable to be fully known.”

I have found that to be true each year as I’ve gone back through the Bible. Sometimes I find myself feeling as if a passage just appeared there for the first time. I’m reminded that no matter how many times we read through the Bible, we have only scratched the surface. I hope you feel the same.

Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways,
And how small a whisper we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26.14)

I sometimes LINKUP with these blogs.