God’s gifts to us are priceless. He not only gives us access to his presence, but His Spirit is within us wherever we go. His grace gives us blessings we don’t deserve, while his mercy protects us from the punishment we do deserve. There are at least five times that I know of, that He has saved me from death or very serious injury.
An old country song says, “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” Actually, God answers every prayer, but sometimes the answer is no. The song goes on to describe how God had something much better in mind. There is a drawing of a little girl clinging to a tiny teddy bear. Jesus is reaching out for it with one hand while holding a huge stuffed bear behind his back. The caption reads, “I don’t know Jesus. I love my bear.” How many wonderful blessings have we missed because we are clinging to good ones?
There is an old hymn that tells us to “Count your blessings name them one by one; count your many blessings,see what God has done.” I’m good at math, but looking back at all the blessings over my 80 years of life, I can’t count that high and doing so one at a time would take longer than I have left. So I will continue to recognize each blessing as it comes. I’ll look up and say, “I know that was you, Lord. Thank you.”
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