Truly Blessed

“Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” (Ps 40:5 AV)

We truly are blessed by God.  As the psalmist truthfully articulates, all the wonderful works toward us are so numerous, we cannot fully account for them all.  He is so gracious, kind, loving, merciful, and benevolent that we cannot comprehend all that He has done for us.  This is important to remember.  If they are too numerous to calculate, by extension, this means much goes unnoticed.  Last night, in our prayer meeting, as we entered the throne of God, we were careful to thank God for all that He has done and were also careful to acknowledge all that we know if is in comparison very small to what He has done for us.  Sometimes, we can have our eyes set on troubles and trials and forget all the benefits God has bestowed on us.  We can become overwhelmed by crisis and forget God has led us and strengthened us thus far.  When life becomes difficult, our eyesight is very short.  It only goes as far as the trouble we see.  Our writer encourages us that when we see harder times, we never forget that God is so good to us that we cannot even account for it all.

We had a great time at church last night.  We had been taking up a coin offering for a crisis pregnancy center.  When it came time to cash it in, I had a contest to see if anyone could get how many coins we took in.  We threw around ideas for a prize and the idea came up of dunking the pastor (that would be me) in a dunking booth – IN JANUARY.  That would be great if we were in the Bahamas.  But we are in Wisconsin.  I’m pretty sure a dunking booth would freeze overnight.  As my lovely wife and I went to the bank where she worked, I noticed she went into the counting room with her co-worker as the coin was counted.  That seemed a bit odd.  Then I learned why.  My church member conspired with my wife to get the answer before we held the contest.  Knowing the fix was in, I devised the means by which my church and my wife would have consequences for their dishonesty.  The floor was opened to guesses.  Everyone could win.  This wasn’t a contest of who was closer.  Anyone within five dollars, either way, would receive a prize.  There could be duplicate guesses.  It didn’t matter.  As long as the participant was within five dollars, they were a winner.  If they all guessed within five dollars, I would know there was something nefarious going on.  So, after all the guesses were in,  I offered anyone who could come to within five dollars of the total a homemade coffee cake.  On my wife!  BAM!  They would feel guilty for asking my wife to bake dozens of cakes and she would feel overworked for having to make them all.  And the pastor stays dry!  The thing was, no one guessed within five dollars.  Over a dozen guesses and no one got close enough.  Looking into the jar, knowing how many coins there were became impossible.

This is how our lives are.  Our life is full of God’s blessings.  It is so full that it is impossible to know it all.  Just like that jar of coins, we may be able to see coins on the surface, but we have no idea was is hidden.  We can only guess.  We can see God’s hand in obvious ways.  But much more of what God does is not so obvious.  There are blessings we will never know of this side of glory.  Not until we graduate into our eternal home will we ever realize just how good God has been.  So, next time we are going through a rough patch, accept the reality that even though you may feel like it at the time, God is still blessing you.  Thank Him for it!  Acknowledge it. And rest in the reality that God is always good to those who call upon His name.