Stealing Blessings

Has God ever asked you to pick up a piece of trash? No, really, like has He ever asked you to pick up a piece of trash, literally, on the ground, remains of something? He does it to me all the time! It’s actually quite annoying. It’s annoying because sometimes I think it’s gross. Other times I feel like I just don’t have the time to do it. He’ll even ask me to do other little things. Like one time at Wal-mart God told me to get all the carts and put them in the cart return thingy. I looked around my proximity and there were like 5 or 6 carts. Instantly I said, “no way God. I don’t have the time for that. It’s simply not in my schedule.” So I left, and forgot about it.
Today as I was ironing I was listening to my fabulous iphone’s shuffling of songs, and a small phrase in Casting Crowns’ song “Glory” spoke loudly to me. It said, “I’ll do anything you ask me to.” And I believed it! I sang it with conviction. When the vocalist said that part of the verse the second time around I said out loud, “Yes, I will Lord!” And then He said back to me, “but, will you really?” He quickly reminded me of the time I didn’t put back all the carts. He reminded me of the time I delayed in picking up the smashed plastic bottle in the parking lot of my church. This saddened me. And I began to question whether or not I was truly willing to be an empty vessel for Him. Am I, Monica, truly willing to put aside my agenda for the purposes of God? And see God, He is sooo good, that He even went as far as to explain to me why these menial things are so important to Him. He did it by reminded me of something my sister said the day before yesterday. She said, “It makes me wonder how many people miss their blessing because of other people’s unwillingness to just do what God asks of them.” She said this referring to something I did this weekend out of obedience to my conscience and ultimately the Lord (Romans 2:15). You see, listening to God this weekend turned out to be a huge blessing for someone else. It wasn’t evident that in making that decision such a blessing would come out of my obedience, but it did. As a matter of fact, I was just as hesitant, if not more, to follow God’s lead as I was the day of the shopping carts. But this time I did it. And I actually got to hear of the blessing it produced!
The truth is I don’t think God is all that concerned with shopping carts or trash. I mean, I know he cares, because it’s all His anyway. However, I do not believe that He is asking in a legalistic way. Therefore, I am not saying that from now on, you should all be concerned with picking up every piece of trash you see. And maybe He DOES want that! I don’t know. All I am saying is that for me, in my walk, it is extremely important to obey even what seems to be ridiculous or unworthy of attention. How do I know that putting up those shopping carts would not have put me in the perfect position to minister to someone very much in need? Or what if I never knew what kind of blessing that action would put into motion, but there was a blessing coming out of it none the less? And so I asked myself, “Whose blessing did I steal that day?”