Playing the Long Game For our final day together exploring God’s blessings, I want to share where I believe being a bigger blessing starts: clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick. Every statistic about people living below the poverty line or experiencing homelessness reveals how much our cities are hurting below the surface. Every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God. You can add other metrics to the mix, such as mental health. And you can fill in the blank based on where you live. But no matter how you slice it, we live in a fallen world surrounded by hurting people. The good news? God’s kingdom is coming, and we are the conduits of His blessing. Seeking the health of your city and caring for the poor and hungry may sound daunting, but it is really just another invitation from God to bless others and receive His blessing in return. Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40, NIV). That’s the heart of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. It’s the way we play the long game, the giving game! Show me the size of your dream, and I’ll show you the size of your God. So what are you believing God for? Of course, no matter how big your dream is, God is bigger still! James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us, “You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:2, NIV) Jesus’s words up the ante: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7, NIV). Blessing is yours for the asking, but the only way to keep it is to give it away. In the words of the martyred missionary Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” So who will you bless today? How will you bless them?

Irreplaceable Praise In fractal geometry, there is a complex set of numbers that produces an infinitely intricate shape when plotted on a plane. It’s called a Mandelbrot set, after the founder of fractal geometry, Benoit Mandelbrot. Clouds and coastlines are classic examples of this endless complexity. Any detail can be magnified to reveal even more detail, ad infinitum. The blessings of God are a Mandelbrot set. They aren’t one size fits all. Each blessing is custom fitted to your complexity and, I might add, your personality. Take the mercy of God, for example. The mercy God has shown you is as unique as your fingerprint. The writer of Lamentations said that God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23). The Hebrew word for “new” doesn’t just mean “again and again.” It means “different.” In other words, today’s mercy is different from yesterday’s mercy, which is different from the mercy of the day before that. If you want to fully appreciate God’s mercy, take out a calculator. Multiply your age by 365 days; then add the number of days since your last birthday. The total number of days you’ve been alive is synonymous with the different strains of mercy you have been shown. Each day’s mercy is a never-to-be-repeated miracle. Let me push this envelope a little further. There never has been and never will be anyone like you, but that isn’t a testament to you. It’s a testament to the God who created you. And the significance of that is this: no one can worship God like you or for you. When we sing a song like “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” we may be singing the same words, but we are singing a very different song. God has been faithful to me in thousands of different ways. When I sing of His faithfulness, I’m singing out of my unique experiences. And so are you. If you don’t sing, the person next to you might not miss your voice, but God will. In fact, you are holding out on God. Why? Because your praise is irreplaceable! Like our praise that is uniquely offered to God, God’s blessings are uniquely fitted to us. What can you praise God for today that no one else in history has praised Him for? Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22‭-‬23 NIV