Called to Inherit a Blessing

When I think about inheritances, I tend to think of someone like Abraham, and the reference is less material than it is spiritual. Inheritances often have stipulations upon them. The stipulation on Abraham’s inheritance was that he had to follow God to a place that He would reveal later; the inheritance was a blessing of Abraham’s name and the promise of innumerable descendants who would dwell in the land God promised him and become a great nation (Gen. 12:1-2/13:16-17). It was an inheritance of hope.

Likewise, I Peter 3:9 clearly states that I, too, have been “called for the very purpose that [I] might inherit a blessing,” but unfortunately I rarely view myself in light of the truth that I am someone who is spiritually rich. Instead, I often focus on the flaws and the struggles and the disconnect between who I am and who I want to become. Thus the idea that I was called for the purpose of inheriting a blessing seems strange to me. It is strange because I know who I was in the past, and I know who I am now, while God sees what I will become—the woman He is making me. It is strange because this blessing I am to inherit comes in a way that is incomprehensible to me—through Christ’s example of suffering, through putting aside my wants and desires, through choosing a path that often seems foreign and painful. Only when I embrace Christ’s sacrifice for me and subject myself to Him and His plans for me can I reap the full inheritance He wants to lavish on me. I have a choice. I can continue to live as a “middle-class” citizen of this earth with little or no inheritance, or I can choose to see myself as He sees me—a daughter who has “sanctified Christ as Lord in [her] heart” and is one who is “always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks [her] to give an account for the hope that is in [her].” I think I can definitely get used to the idea of having a rich inheritance.