Psalms 67:1-2 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us,
that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

Motives can be hard to determine, especially thousands of years after the fact, but putting the best possible face on this, it is noble indeed. The anonymous Psalmist seems to be asking God for blessings not from a strictly self-centered viewpoint, but so that all the nations of the earth may know about God. That is noble indeed, and the sort of prayer God delights to answer positively. We tend to be all about I-my-me-mine, but that is not the way of true blessing. God does care about us individually, but He cares about all of us individually. He does provide special blessings for those who respond to Him rightly, but that doesn’t mean that one person has inherently more value than another. It is a paradox, but every person alive can rightly say, “I am special in God’s sight.” God doesn’t “clone people for background,” they way they do in computer graphics for movies and such, He creates each person individually in the womb, just as David wrote so beautifully in Psalm 139:13. That’s why abortion is a sin against God, as well as against the child. Because He creates each person, He wants each person to know Him. When we grasp that truth and live accordingly, we enter into a dimension of blessing and fellowship with Him that can happen no other way.

I am something of an odd case in this area. It is a statistical fact that people with Teacher gifting seldom become active evangelists, tending to be more theoretical than practical, I am not only a missionary Teacher, I am the son of a missionary Teacher. God’s grace and His plans are indeed far higher than the merely human! (Isaiah 55:9) I have found, by observation and experience, that there is no deeper or higher joy than being used by God to bring someone into the family of God. I am not naturally very social, to the point that I don’t really like parties of more than a very few people, but by the grace of God I will speak to total strangers about Him, and rejoice in it. I have found that the better we understand the breadth and depth of God’s love, the less self-centered and the happier we are. God loves me enough to send His Son to die in my place, but He also loves each other individual that much, so sharing His love with other individuals is the best thing I, or anyone else, can do.

Father, thank You for Your incredible grace. Thank You for creating me as You did and bringing me through all I have experienced. Thank You most especially for using me in spite of myself, letting others know of Your love and grace and drawing them to You. I haven’t had the results I would have liked, but that is Your business. Help me be faithful, keeping my eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and doing Your will on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!