Exhausting heaven's resources

During my Old Testament class last week we were talking about David and his infidelity with Bathsheba.  My professor got to talking about Nathan's rebuke of David.  Nathan is delivering this message from God telling David that God has given him his house, his wives, and all of Israel and Judah, but then he goes on from there and says, "And if this had been too little, I would have given you even more." (2 Samuel 12:8)  It seems that God is disappointed that David hasn't appreciated the gifts that he has been given.  My professor began to break away from our original topic and focused in on this one point.  From a personal standpoint, my professor believed that despite all of his infirmities and illnesses that he has had to deal with over his life, that God was ready at a moment's notice to exhaust heaven of its resources to bless him.  Such a powerful illustration of God's desire to give good gifts to His children.  God wants to bless me more than I can possibly know or understand.  Then he took it one step further and claimed that God already has blessed us beyond our imaginations.  He imagined having a conversation with God about the things that God had given him during his life and just hearing God say that the things that were given to him were perfect for him, that God had taken great pains to find the perfect gifts suitable for him, and that no other gift would do.  That all of heaven had worked together to find the perfect gift for him.

I really thought about all of this for quite a while.  The thing is that I was wrestling with the possibility that God was calling me away from my home church.  After becoming more and more involved in my church lately, I couldn't understand God asking me to move on.  This discussion really made me stop and think.  God knows the perfect gift for me and is constantly seeking to give it to me.  His plan for my life is far better than the one that I have planned.  He knows me far better than I know myself and is able to bless me in a way that far surpasses that which I could even hope for.  So if God called me away, then who was I to say no.  It certainly wasn't an easy place to be in and clouded my path substantially, but something in me said to simply hold to God and know that He has a plan better than mine.  To my delight, I later found out that God was not calling me away from the church, but had opened up new opportunities for me within the church.  It appears that God simply wanted me to acknowledge that it is His plan that we are following and not mine.

There is the age-old expression that the grass is always greener on the other side.  We say it tongue and cheek knowing that if we go to the other side we'll find that it really isn't better than before and in some cases its much worse.  We look at the things we have and become discontent and think that something else is better for us.  If we simply stop and think about it though the things we have are far better than what we realize.  They are gifts granted to us by God for the sole purpose of blessing us.  They were carefully selected to fit who we are and who we were made to be.  If we can stop looking over the fence, perhaps we can begin to marvel at how amazing the gifts are that God has already blessed us with.  My hope is that as we continue to look at our lives, we will begin to see just how perfect are God's blessings.  That we will begin to appreciate in a new light the people in our lives, the abilities that we have, and the opportunities that God has blessed us with.  May we realize that God continues to exhaust heaven's resources from a desire to display His incredible love.