Daily Light - April 12, 2011

Daily Light from the Lighthouse

"Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order;

if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered."

Psalm 40:5

What is the first blessing that you ever received from the hand of the Lord and you knew God was in it? Now, what was the second? How about the third? The psalmist lays before us the impossible task of naming God's blessings and demonstrations of His love in our life in order. There is absolutely no way that this is even feasible, and he knows it. God's blessings have been so great that we have forgotten more of them than we remember.

We are then challenged with another ridiculous job that a hymn writer picked up on years ago. Count your blessings! Just try to assign a number to each and every blessing in your life. Better yet, take a sheet of paper and number it from 1 to 100. Start making a list of the things that you are thankful for. Keep doing this until you run out of blessings and praises. How many sheets of paper do you think you could fill? At some point you will realize that this is an exercise of ridiculous joy! There is not enough paper or ink to write the goodness of God's hand on the lives of every man, woman or child that has ever lived.

How often do we forget the goodness of Lord? We are much like the children of Israel that saw God move miraculously among them. They would be led by fire at night and a cloud by day. By the kindness of God there was manna and quail to eat. God Himself fought against their enemies for them and left them safely in their tents. However, as soon as things went a little awry, they forgot about all of that. They began to wail and declare doom and despair. It seems that they only saw what they wanted to see.

We are awakened each day by the grace of God. The breath that flows easily from our lungs is often taken for granted. Our hearts beat at the bidding of God's divine creative power. We do not have to concentrate on the beating of our heart or the breath that fills our lungs. Most of us have more than we could ever use for ourselves. These precious few things do not even begin to compare with all that we have in Christ. Let's not dwell on what we do not have but instead see all that God has done for us!

May we see what God wants us to see today!