Matthew 19:29
How can God give you something if there is no space in your life for you to receive it?
While God may remove things from our lives so that he can give us something even better, sometimes he is waiting to bless us until we remove things from our lives ourselves.
Therefore, here are 3 instances where God may be waiting to bless you once you make the room for this blessing to come into your life.
1. If You’ve Been Praying for Something that Is Going to Require a Lot of Your Time and Energy, God May Be Saying, “Make the Room So I Can Give This to You”
There is a principle throughout Scripture that God often gives people blessings in accordance to their ability to rightly manage those blessings.
For example, in Jesus’ parable of the talents, he said of the master, “To one [servant] he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15). At the end of the parable, the master said, “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29).
This principle often relates to how much time and energy we have to manage blessings we desire from the Lord. Before God will give you a relationship, a new calling, or a new position in your career, oftentimes God waits for us to rightly order our lives so he can send that which he wants us to multiply for him.
When God blesses us, he expects us to take what he gives and use it for others (1 Peter 4:10), multiplying his blessing into more blessings for others (Matthew 25:20-23). This doesn’t happen by accident. If you don’t have the time and energy to use God’s blessings for the proper reasons (James 4:3), he often he won’t send them to you until you do have the time and energy.
2. If You’ve Been Praying for a Blessing that Involves a Person or a Group of People, God May Be Saying, “Make the Room”
Perhaps you have been asking God for a spouse. Or maybe you have been praying for a new group of friends. Or perhaps you have been inquiring of God to lead you to the right church family.
However, if you are dating people you know are not going to be your spouse, if you are spending all of your time with your old group of friends who love worldliness, or if you always go to the same church even though you feel God doesn’t want you there anymore – God may be waiting to bless you until you remove the old so he can bring the new.
In Matthew 19:29, Jesus made a promise. He said you “will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.” But what did he say before the promise? What did he require? The full verse states, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”
Here again we see the principle of first needing to make room for God to give you something you desire.
3. If You’ve Been Praying for an Internal Blessing that Will Alter Your Feelings, God May Be Saying, “Make the Room”
Sometimes we are filled with negative emotions that we wish would just go away. Stress, anxiety, fear, anger, and so on. Why won’t God replace these feelings with better ones?
Whenever you want something from God, you have to make room for it. Throughout the Bible, we are told what to not do and what to do, what to let go of and want to take hold of, what to reject and what to accept. There’s always a giving and a taking. In Matthew 13:44-46 (NIV), Jesus said:
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
Thus, if you want the peace of God to come into your heart, you have to let go of your old life to receive your new life in Christ.
And on a practical level when applying this principle to our desire for better thoughts and feelings, you can’t just not think or not feel. You have to think better thoughts and focus your emotional energy on better things (Romans 12:21, Romans 13:14, Philippians 4:4-9).
Related Article: 3 Signs God Is Saying, “Just Put Me First”
