“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” So says the first line of a doxology I grew up singing. However, by last semester, I found myself stopping after “Praise God” came out of my lips. God had been present, surely, but blessings had not been terribly evident in my eyes. I had lost respect, friendship, and sleep—the only thing I seemed to have gained was a host of program rejections flooding my inbox. And yet, “Praise God…from whom all blessings flow.” Why? Because His blessings are not confined by current societal conditions.

Only since the beginning of this semester have I begun to see how society, rather than godly wisdom, guided many of my pursuits last year. A couple weeks ago, as I checked references on a homework assignment, I came across the fascinating first sentence of the article, “What the Image of God Means for Our Dignity and Work,” which reads: “The number one fear of the millennial generation is living a meaningless life.” This sentence led to a period of eye-opening reflection, and I now can attest to the fact that this mindset plagues much of America, including Gordon College.

Is the fear of leading a meaningless life necessarily a bad thing? No, but it can lead you to equate “blessings” with “successes”—promotions, good grades, job offers, recognition, etc.—and to ultimately gauge your worth based on accomplishments rather than the value stamped on you by God.

This trap, which Dutch Catholic priest Henri Nouwen aptly named “the success-failure syndrome,” might work out for a while. Eventually, though, this house built on unstable ground will come crashing down around you as success descends into failure—the things and people in which you found your value no longer speak worth into your life (Matthew 7:26-7 ESV).

When this happens, how do we redefine our perception of blessings and worth to see that they are not found in success, but rather in the hand of an ever-present God? How does one look for the seemingly-absent Lord? A man long ago pondered very similar questions as he struggled to escape the wiles of sin. The first segment of one of his famous works, Confessions, offers us a suggestion: Begin with a prayer.

St. Augustine of Hippo remarked on much of his life in a voice of prayer. In the opening paragraphs, after briefly contemplating how to approach God, he wrote, “I shall look for you, Lord, by praying to you and as I pray I shall believe in you, because we have had preachers to tell us about you.” Following the guidance of this much-respected theologian, make known your requests, doubts, tribulations to God (Philippians 4:6). Converse with God—keep it long or short, loud or silent; but in all cases, keep it real.

Sometimes, the only words left to utter are those already given to us by the Psalms and through the cry of our own Lord: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46).

Appreciate the raw vulnerability of those dark valleys; pour out your heart in the silence of your hopelessness, for as Augustine found, “In him is the place of peace that cannot be disturbed, and he will not withhold himself from your love unless you withhold your love from him” (81). After acknowledging those sorrows in chapel, your room, the woods—wherever it is you give in to that tension—go forth and wait upon the Lord. This may seem like a rather anticlimactic “next step.” Yet, the depth of awareness that comes to fruition in this moment is exactly the state in which we begin to see God at work in our lives—not necessarily in grand, opulent gestures, but through the actions and words of strangers and friends whom God moves to pray with and for us in the moments of sorrow in which joy is sown.

This process is no overnight arrangement—in my case, it took months of seemingly unanswered prayers and sleepless nights, wondering whether my God had lost sight of one small soul among the billions he created. But hope does come, if you allow your eyes to be opened to the goodness of the ordinary joys God places in your days. And as we receive these seeds of hope, our narrow definition of “blessings” expands, and we recognize that the success-oriented interpretations of this world are too narrow for an all-encompassing God. For even when the world tries to withhold all, the one “who has faith in you owns all the wealth of the world, for if he clings to you, whom all things serve, though he has nothing yet he owns them all.” Trusting in this worldview will allow each weary voice to once again find the solid footing of faith to sing, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow”—for blessings do flow, and in abundance—if only we look past the meaning given to us by the world and instead accept the identity bestowed by Christ.