by Don Hildenbrand

Created on: January 16, 2009

Does God grant blessings? Many believe God does. Many will present testimonies about times when God granted them blessings, and many more will point to Biblical stories of the blessings God has granted.

These testimonies and Biblical stories are all well and good, but, in looking at the question of whether or not God grants blessings, we would do well to look beyond these sources of information.

It is true that, throughout the Biblical narratives, many examples can be shown of God granting blessings. But the question arises; are these stories, or any Biblical story, actual literal history, or are they "mythology", mythology in the theological sense of a story that has a spiritual point, regardless of whether or not it is true?

This is, of course, one of the dividing lines between conservative and liberal Christianity. Most conservatives would assert that these stories are of course true and historical, while most liberals would assert just as strongly that the narratives are in essence parables, stories that are meant to teach us something about the spiritual side of life, and that the writer of the story may not have been presenting actual history. So it may be wise to set aside the Biblical narratives as a source of an answer to the question of whether or not God grants blessings.

Personal testimonies have some of the same problems. The testimonies are, of course, true to the person telling them, but did things really happen the way the testifier believes they happened? If a neutral observer were to watch the supposed event, would they see the same things as the one who has the testimony? Did God really reach down from heaven and intervene in the life of a believer? Or was there something else going on, something perhaps just as meaningful, but maybe not requiring direct Divine intervention?

There's a story that illustrates this dilemma nicely. An elderly woman in a small town was experiencing some financial hardships, and was down to her last scraps of food in the house. She began to pray loudly to God, praying that He would bless her with food. While she was praying, the local town atheist heard her praying, and decided to "teach her a lesson." He went to the grocery store, bought a good quantity of food, put it on her doorstep, rang the doorbell, and hid behind a bush. The widow opened the door, saw the food, and began praising and thanking God for the food. The atheist stood up from behind the bush, and said, "Foolish old woman! It's wasn't God that gave you

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