When I was younger, every summer brought the same story as the last. The day school let out, my brothers and sister and I would begin pining away for what every child covets at one time or another – a swimming pool.
We’d drop hints at first, exaggerating extreme temperature increases and fabricated cases of heat exhaustion. When that didn’t work, we’d attempt logic and appeal to our parents’ sense of reasoning. And finally, when all of that failed, we’d resort to good old-fashioned whining and complaining.
The strange thing was that no matter our style of appeal, the answer was always the same. The even stranger thing was that the answer was never no. In fact, every time the subject came up, my father would say, “Sure! You kids can have a pool any time you want… just dig the hole.”
“Dig the what?” We wanted a pool, not an experience in manual labor. To be quite honest, we would have preferred it if he just would have told us no in the first place. A “No” was certainly better than a conditional “Yes.” At least with a no, we could have blamed him for our lack of summer fun. Instead, we had to live with the reality that we didn’t have a pool, and it was pretty much our own fault.
I don’t know what my father would have done if the five of us had actually gotten out there – shovels in hand – and started digging. My guess is that he would have been pretty surprised. But when it came right down to it, he knew us well enough to know that we weren’t interested in the process of working for what we wanted; we were just interested in the end result. Dig the hole? Probably not.
How many times have we approached God in the same way a child approaches her father? We pray for Him to bless us. We pray to be used in great and mighty ways. Yet, when He asks us to work for what we want, even just a little, we throw our hands up in the air and give up. When it comes right down to it, we don’t want to work for our blessings; we just want to be blessed.
“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).
The Bible is very clear that the Christian life is not a life of lucrative living and bottomless blessings. We are called to be workers – not to attain our salvation but as a result of our salvation.
God wants to bless us. He wants us to have that swimming pool, so to speak. But He also knows that often the greatest blessings are not in the end result, but in the progress of attaining the end result. So when you pray for God to bless you, don’t be surprised if He immediately calls you into action. For the real blessing lies not in the swimming pool, but in digging the hole.
Q: How is God calling you to action today?
Wow! You really got me thinking. I’m praying that I will not only have understanding of the action God wants me to take, but that I will have the faith to do it.
Reblogged this on Gently Speaking ♥ and commented:
I can’t begin to tell you all how very much I liked this post. It’s come at a perfect time in my life for reasons I won’t get all into right now. Suffice it to say that I have a hole to go dig.
If this post speaks to you in some way, please share it in the comments section. I’d love to hear about the necessary holes in your life and how the Lord blesses you with a brand new shovel.
Just a note to let you know that I’m passing all ya’lls Glo-post on to some very near & dear people in my life…..please be praying for hearts & heads to continue to be open & receptive to His Words. In His Luv………..
You don’t know how blessed you are NOT to have gotten the pool! Thinking that the family that plays together instead of prays together stays together, our parents exchanged our church, school, and extended family and friends for a ‘nice house with a pool’, and withing a few years divorced, leaving behind 6 atheist swimmers/divers/lifeguards. Lots of fun, but no God, still trying to pick up the pieces. There’s no pool now, but I’d rather have the God of the Universe as my Father, Savior, Refuge, Comforter, Teacher, Counselor, and His Word the Lighthouse that guides our lives,..and give that legacy to my children.any ol’ day. Maybe as children we couldn’t see that, but I sure can see now what is truly valuable. And, all of our children do too. Leaving an eternal legacy, by His merciful grace.
Wow. I’m sorry to hear that, Debra, and I agree – a pool is so not worth it. I am once again reminded how my parents blessed me and my siblings even when we thought they were being mean! 🙂 I wouldn’t trade my Christian upbringing for all the amenities in the world. Prayers for you as you strive to give your children the godly legacy that you didn’t have when you were growing up.
Thanks for this post Emily, it’s a great reminder of the blessings and growth that come while ‘digging’. The ‘digging’ is tempting to forego in our desire for immediate results, but that’s where the real treasure is. Thanks for the much needed encouragement!