Don't block your blessings!

I read an interesting little story in a library book. Although I've returned the book, I'll try to re-tell the story as best I can, along with the point it made. Here goes.

There was once a mother who had two young sons. One of the boys considered himself to be an extremely lucky person. He won several competitions, was always on the spot if anything good was being distributed and managed to avoid punishment and accidents, sometimes by a hair's breadth. However, his brother thought of himself as an unlucky victim. He wasted money and time participating in games and competitions that he never won. If anything good ever happened at school, it was sure to be when he was sick at home. He'd broken the same arm twice and sprained his ankles five times. And he was always stepping in dog droppings or getting rained on.

The mother became concerned about this son's pessimistic attitude and low self-esteem. She decided to help him to the best of her ability. One day, she placed a shiny $2 coin near the top of the stairs just before he went up, but he strode past without noticing. Before she could draw it to his attention, his "lucky" brother pounced on it and said, "Look what I found!"

Then the "unlucky" boy mumbled, "That'd be right. It's always you. I never have any luck."

Next day, the mother arranged for her "lucky" son to be spending time at a friend's house before she repeated the trick. This time, she placed a coin just inside the front door. As the "unlukcy" boy crossed the threshold, she cried out, "Look down by your feet."

But when he saw it, he refused to pick it up. "I know you put it there on purpose to make me feel better. That doesn't count." And he trudged to his bedroom, dejected as ever, leaving his mother to put the coin back into her purse.

That was it. I admit that at first I wondered what the point must be. I could even understand the boy's attitude. Then the book explained that by not picking up the $2.00 coin, the boy was choosing not to acknowledge one good blessing that was already in his life. He had a mother who loved and cared about him enough to want to do him a good turn. He wasn't totally unlucky. If he'd been thinking with a "blessing" mentality, he would've taken that money even though he knew where it'd come from. He blocked a blessing from reaching him. And when we block one blessing, we tend to block more. That might be a crucial difference between "lucky" and "unlucky" people. I went on to think that most certainly his brother would've picked up the money, in the same position. People with blessing mentalities aren't choosy about the source. God can use a variety of agents and some of them seem pretty ordinary and close to home, but a blessing is still a blessing. A simple story but it actually impacted me and I found I've been more appreciative of simple blessings all week.