A Blessing!!

Forget not all His benefits. Psalm 103:2

For many years, the Mt. Bethel church family had a special way to close out each service on Sunday. We as a congregation, held hands across the aisles and pews and sang together our trademark benediction. The words went like this: May the good Lord bless and keep you, whether near or far away. May you find that long awaited golden day today. May your troubles all be small ones, and your fortune ten times ten. May the good Lord bless and keep you til we meet again. It was our blessing for each other for the week.

The word blessing or Makarios literally means happiness. It was a wish for happiness, health, and living in God’s favor until we met again. It was so special, and it bonded us as a church and as God’s people. Who wouldn’t want to start your week with a wish for happiness?

Now we come again to that season of the year where we thank God for His blessings, ask to experience His happiness, and for His favor to be upon us. The year 2020 has not been a year which offered us many chances to reflect on our blessings; yet gratitude isn’t a natural response to adversity, it’s a discipline you develop!

In the midst of reflecting on this year, it would be easy to think that God hasn’t blessed us, but if we sit back and think back, I bet we will find many reasons for counting those blessings. Think back on His faithfulness through the years to us, our family, our friends, our country, and we’ll soon be filled with so much gratitude and joy! An attitude of gratitude in the midst of the adversity all around us will bring us to our knees. Tough times don’t end over night as we have seen, but there is much hope for us this Thanksgiving.

Habakkuk says, “Though fig trees may not grow, though there may be no grapes on the vines; no olives; no food growing in the fields; no sheep in the pens, no cattle in the barns, yet I will still rejoice in God my Savior.

We succeed in rejoicing in God always by staying focused on our blessings and not our troubles. When we take time to remember our blessings, it will change our attitude and our outlook. Stay focused.

We, as Christians, have the blessing of being able to take everything to God – the little things, the tiny things, and the trivial things of life. We pray earnestly, petition, and wait. God will answer.

We are blessed when we stay faithful. It’s easy to stay faithful when everything is going well and all is comfortable and right with the world. However, when we hit a time when our world seems to be falling apart right before us, that’s the time to look up and declare, “I have faith in God that it will happen just as He told me.” (Acts 27:25) Blessings don’t trickle in if you are faithful to God, they come in abundance.

My Daddy was a farmer, and when he planted a seed, it didn’t resemble the mature plant. Sometimes we don’t recognize our blessings because they are still in seed form, and we don’t recognize them for what they are when God is finished with them. Look around for those seeds we might inadvertently miss in our lives every day.

Jesus taught His disciples to be distributors of blessings to those around them. This Thanksgiving, my prayer is that we will be distributors and that there will be showers of blessings around each of us.

We can praise God too little, but we can never praise Him too much!

Happy Thanksgiving!

There will be showers of blessings, This is the promise of love; There shall be seasons refreshing, Sent from the Savior above. Showers of blessings, showers of blessings we need; Mercy drops round us are falling, But for the showers we plead. Showers of Blessings by Daniel Whittle