There’s a Hillsong United song, “As You Find Me”, that contains the lyrics:
I have wrestled
And I have trembled toward surrender
Chased my heart adrift
And drifted home again
Plundered blessing
Till I’ve been desperate to find redemption
And every time I turn around
Lord, You’re still there
When I heard that lyric, “plundered blessing”, it captured me, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. The rest of the song is amazing too, but during this FULL HEART GREAT GAIN series we’ve been in as a church, I just can’t shake the concept of plundering something that God has GIVEN me, and what that means.
So, of course, I went to the Word….and the dictionary.
I found this odd little story in Daniel 4, where a king gets so big headed, so arrogant, that he’s driven to madness for 7 years, and then when he comes back to himself, he surrenders himself to God, and God restores everything that he had before.
Plundering blessing, to me, now means:
squeezing every ounce of goodness out of a blessing, until it’s not good anymore.
loving the blessing so much, you start worshipping it, instead of the God that gave it to you.
mining a blessing for only the parts that make you feel good, and ignoring the parts that could help others.
ignoring God’s commands, but taking the blessing for yourself.
Can you think of other examples of people plundering blessing in the Word?
Adam & Eve…had everything, but still wanted more.
Jonah…had God, didn’t matter who else in the world didn’t, as long as he was comfortable.
Saul…allowed his men to take anything they wanted, when God specifically told them to destroy everything.
David….had all the wives and concubines he wanted, but had to have one he couldn’t have.
Study the book of Daniel.
What can we learn from chapter 3?
What else can we learn from chapter 4?
Can you think of any areas of your life that you may be plundering God’s blessing?
Can you see other Bible examples of this?