Blessed

           Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)

          I’m supposedly privileged. I grew up in an economic boom that allowed the son of a coal miner and a washer woman, and the daughter of greenhouse florists and bus drivers could, as high school graduates, get and keep good (but stressful) jobs for a long time. My parents loved one another and stayed married – for richer, for poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and health, for as long as they both lived. It helps that by the time I was a teen, my siblings were grown and on their own. Thanks to my parents’ faithfulness, I got to go to college, which at the time was another privilege (even if I didn’t treat it like one.) I’m also privileged in that I know my family’s history going back more than two hundred years in most of the branches.

         I know what it feels like to be supposedly privileged. Most Americans don’t know anything but privilege. Even poor folks in this country tend to have it better than the people living in Venezuela, China, or Haiti. Sadly, the solution being promised to those privileged folks who don’t  think they’re privileged enough is Harrison Bergeron: the artificial equalization of everyone to the lowest common denominator.

         Yes, I’m supposedly privileged, but the truth is that blessed. Those both are, and are not, the same thing. They’re the same in that God has given to all people all that they have (no matter how little that is.) What He has blessed us with is more than we deserve, because all that we deserve is death (all have sinned (Romans 3:23)…and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)  That common blessing is given to everyone. Rich or poor, it doesn’t matter. You’re still blessed.

           But God reserves a special blessing, and a special privilege, for those who seek it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, powerful or weak. In fact, it’s often easier for those who aren’t privileged to find it (which means they’re not really privileged.) That blessing is Jesus Christ, Himself. The problem is, of course, that Jesus isn’t the blessing we tend to want. We want the blessings of wealth or power.

          Years ago, someone I knew gave someone else some money to be used in a specific way. Instead, the recipient bought alcohol. The money was his, he had the right to spend it on what he wanted. That’s the way we tend to think, unless we’re the ones handing out the money.

We have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. Our eternity has been secured. I know – that doesn’t solve any of our problems now, but what a load off the mind, to not only not face questions about eternity, but to be able to look forward to it. I have a “To Do” list that feels like it’s ten light years long. Everything that deals with eternity has been checked off. I don’t have to worry about avoiding Hell I don’t have to come back here and go through another miserable life (with no knowledge of what I did wrong in the last life,) It’s all arranged.

          But we don’t live in the light of that blessing very well. That’s “in the sky, by and by.” And truth told, I suspect we’re more interested in our mansions and the streets of gold than we are in the Christ who built them and bought them. We’re more interested in what’s happening here and now. I get that. As I said, my to do list is ten light years long.  Today, just for a little while, let’s put aside the list and think about our blessings.