Daily Devotionals by Ardith Keef

     If we are not careful, we can acquire a strange idea of what blessings are.
     It is always alarming when I hear someone say "Yes, we are so blessed!  We have
all healthy children, we have plenty of money, and we love our jobs."
     Does that mean that Paul experienced no blessing in prison?  Is blessing measured 
by the lack of things that drive us to the Lord?
     Is blessing measured by the absence of difficulty?
     Hallelujah, no!
     Blessings are the hidden and stored up riches that the Lord loves to shower on His
Own.  And, while He takes no pleasure from seeing them writhe in the dust, some of
the most precious blessings are the very things we would pay any price to avoid.
     For that reason, they are unavoidable.  And, they are hard - sometimes so hard we
think we can not survive them.   But we do,  and how grateful we are to have seen the 
Lord in the situation.
     Real blessings are only seen by faith.
     The Bible says He will withhold no good thing from us.  And if I really believe God's
Word in this area,  I will learn by prayer to understand Paul's statement of freedom:
"For I have learned to be equally content with much or  with little."