Put Away The Umbrella

“Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.” (Ps 68:19 AV)

 

A blessed life is often a matter of perception.  Note in particular the benefits are both loaded and daily.  Daily goes without saying.  We know what that means.  But the word ‘loadeth’ means more than merely a drop of blessings.  It has the same understanding of loading down with a weighty burden.  This word speaks to volume as well as the action.  Many of us sing sprinkles of blessings rather than showers of blessings.  In our generation which is self-centered, we are trained to think more about what we do not have or need than we are about what has been provided.  We gripe and complain because our lives are not as we hoped they would be.  We only see what is lacking.  We do not see what we have.  Instead of food in the pantry, we see the dessert we want but do not have the ingredients which would make it.  Instead of the variety of clothing we have, all we see is the latest fashion which we cannot afford.  Instead of the electronics which make our lives easier, all we see is the newest technology that is out of our reach.  We cannot see the showers of blessings because we resent the sun being hidden by the clouds.

One of the things my siblings and I loved to do we got from our mother.  She loved a good rainstorm in the heat of the summer.  She would go out in the rain and run around as it was downpouring.  She wasn’t concerned about her clothes getting wet or her shoes getting muddy.  The hotter outside it was, the greater the experience of walking around in the rain.  I can remember several summer days like this.  It was muggy and in the nineties.  As the thundering approach, she scurried her children upstairs to don our bathing suits.  After we learned of the pure joy of running around in a thunderstorm, we were pretty well prepared should the event repeat itself.  I can remember many summer afternoons and evenings where we ran up and down our street, or rode our bikes, through the downpours!  It was great.  Others were scampering from car to front door as if the rain was poison.  Running too and fro as though they were made of sugar and would melt at the first contact with a raindrop.  Not us!  We had mud all the way up our backs from our bike tires splashing muddy rainwater upward.  We would run and jump in puddles.  Barefoot, or with sneakers half-falling apart, when the rain came, it wasn’t an inconvenience or a hazard to avoid.  It was pure fun!  A blessing from heaven.

Our demeanor in life has a lot to do with our eyesight.  Our attitude has a lot to do with what we gaze upon and what occupies the mind and heart.  Two children going through identical circumstances can react in two opposite ways.  One can think it the adventure of a lifetime while the other thinks it is pure torture.  Our Psalmist testifies the blessings of God come in bucket-fulls each and every day.  This coming from a man who had to run for his life twice, who had more enemies than friends, saw his sons die because of his own disobedience and lost a wife or two.  Yet David says the blessings of God are dumped on him every day.  If we are discouraged, it is not because God failed in His grace.  If we are discontented, it is not because God hasn’t done His part.  If we are dissatisfied, it is not because God failed to provide.  Our issue is we are using an umbrella and complaining about the inconvenience.  Time to run around in the rain and thank God for His goodness.