Encouragement

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A young man once wrote about his life, his family, his work, and his faith on a social networking site. In talking about all he was blessed with he concluded by saying he had “more than I deserve.”

The reality for almost all of us is that we rightly should be writing and saying the same thing. Our lives include considerably more than we have any reason to expect.

Sure, there are difficulties and challenges from time-to-time. We can call those the rainy days. But, just as the Creator made days of physical rain on this earth, many more are those days of sunshine and beauty. So too our lives. Most of our days include riches and blessings that go far beyond our ability to create on our own.

For those who are married, how is it that of the billions of people on this earth, we have connected with “the” one? As the years pass, our lives intertwine. We are comforted by the knowledge that the roots have gone deep to sustain us and nurture our relationship.

Children, ah, what can we say about them? We can’t wait to have them, and then we marvel at how quickly they change into “little adults”. Life is never the same once they are here! But there’s a place in us that can only be filled by them.

An occupation that enables us to use the skills and abilities God has entrusted to us in order to meet our financial obligations.

Each morning, our God creates a new painting for us to enjoy. Even the backdrop against which the painting is done is incredible. How beautiful the rich, blue sky. And then, when day is done, God doesn’t put away the materials. Quite the contrary – He brings out an immense, unfathomable heaven above us, bursting forth with countless specks of light, twinkling and shimmering as they make their way to our eyes.

Grandchildren, good friends, brothers and sisters, the earth with all its astonishing diversity and beauty, birds flying and singing all around us, animals in the trees and grass, thunderstorms, the sound of a church bell being carried on a breeze, the moon, the four seasons, and so much more we can’t even count, all of this has been granted to us every single day and night. Many of these cost us nothing to enjoy. Our great God made all these for His glory and our delight.

If it were in your power to make all these things, would you then be OK sharing them with people? Many of us would probably be reluctant because we know how we are. In a way, that makes it even more amazing that God lets us enjoy and share in these things. Although we are less than perfect, He treats us as if we are special. Not just once or twice. No, we receive all these things and so much more every day.

Maybe we’ve grown accustomed to it all so we take it all for granted. Perhaps we just get too busy to notice it. Maybe we’ve let the gloom of the rainy day hang around even when there is no rain.

Each one of us is treated every day to a feast of blessings set before us by God Himself. Perhaps the writer of Psalms 23 in the Bible recognized that each day, even here on this earth, we are the invited guest of the Creator to feast on every good and perfect thing He has created.

When we come to that realization we can say, like that young man, “I really do have more than I deserve.”


Copyright © 2011 Rick Henks
[email protected]

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