Can You Receive His Blessings?

I’ve always wanted a library, a room filled with built-in bookshelves rather than freestanding bookcases–a room intended for books. If I ever got one, I knew, it would be a luxury. After all, who really needs a room devoted to housing books? For that matter, who needs enough books to fill a whole room? It was a pipe dream, I believed–the kind of dream that will never come true because it’s simply not necessary.

Then, a few weekends ago, my husband and his dad turned my home office into a library with a full wall of built-in bookshelves. Forty-two standard shelves. One thousand, two hundred-sixty inches of shelf space. They weren’t cheap, although they were made with as much economy as possible. I found out later that my husband, who had sold his dirt bike a few months prior and set aside the money from the sale as a cushion against the fact that we were purchasing our first house, used some of his dirt bike money to pay for my bookshelves.

I watched in awe as my husband and father-in-law installed the shelves, marveling at all the tiny pieces of trim added to create rounded edges, at the addition of molding to the tops, at the filling of nail holes and plugging of screw pockets with wooden plugs that then had to be sanded flat. There was so much mindful detail work; I’d had no idea. When the shelves were finished, they looked like they belonged in the room, like they might have always been there.

They’re a love gift, those shelves.

Oddly, when the paint was dry and the time came to unpack the forty-some boxes of books they were meant to house, it was difficult to fill the shelves with the kind of joyful abandon I’d expected to feel. As I busied myself unloading thousands of books from their temporary cardboard homes, I realized I didn’t believe I deserved those beautiful shelves. For that matter, I realized I didn’t believe I deserved the book collection that would fill the shelves.

Last Christmas, my sister sent me an Amazon gift card. At first glance, this might seem like a somewhat impersonal gift, but it wasn’t simply because of her intent. My sister knows how frequently I’ve been told, “You have too many books.” She also knows that books are one of my great loves. She wanted to give me the opportunity to add to my library a book I really wanted and had perhaps put off purchasing because of cost or lack of need.

It took me over a month to spend that gift card. People stopped buying me books as gifts years ago, claiming fear of buying me a book I already own (never mind the invention of the Amazon Wish List) or saying outright that I have too many books already. Therein lies the real issue: judgment. I’ve been judged and told repeatedly that I have too many books, which my brokenness translates to “You don’t deserve any more books, no matter how much you enjoy them.”

You don’t deserve any more.

Have you ever heard that whisper?

I struggle when my dreams come true, even the little dreams.

I struggle to receive the blessing.

It’s not easy to pinpoint why this is the case. In some way, I suppose, receiving with abandon feels greedy. I even feel that way about my family at times–why should I have a happy marriage and two precious daughters when so many women struggle along in unhappy marriages, facing things like infertility and child loss? Why do I get to be happy? Why did my dream come true? Why should I get to live in a lovely home and have all my physical needs met when people are suffering the world over?

Some days, if I’m being honest, I feel like I’m living in a fairy tale but waiting for it to turn out to be a farce. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as they say. Waiting for grief and loss to come knocking. Waiting for a Job season.

This is not how God wants his children to live.

Matthew 6:9-11 says, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

God wants to bless us. He wants to give us good gifts. And he wants us to receive them with joy, with abandon, with gratitude unmarred by guilt. Guilt, shame, and feelings of unworthiness are the work of Satan, who wants to get in the way of grace. For of course, none of us deserve the good gifts of the Lord based on our own merit. We cannot earn his love and favor. But because of Jesus, we are justified:

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:21-26 NIV).

Because of Jesus, we can receive God’s blessings, material and non-material, delivered supernaturally or through others, with freedom.

We don’t have to dial back our joy. We don’t have to compare our blessings to others’ and tell ourselves we ought to be wanting. We can allow ourselves to be filled to overflowing with his love and grace, and then simply pay that forward by being a vessel of love and grace in the lives of others.

But first, we have to be able to receive. Can you?

Harmony Harkema has loved the written word for as long as she can remember. A former English teacher turned editor, she has spent the past nine years in the publishing industry. A writer herself in the fringe hours of her working-and-homeschooling mom life, Harmony also has a heart for leading and coaching aspiring writers. Harmony lives in Memphis with her husband and two small daughters. She blogs at harmonyharkema.com.

Photograph © Nick Fewings, used with permission