Blessings

 

We just celebrated Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  We are also entering the Christmas season.  It is a time of year when we think of God's blessings.  God's greatest blessing to us is that He sent Jesus into the world to pay for our sins and to pave the way for us to have a wonderful and intimate relationship with Him.

We also experience many other blessings from the Lord.  There are material blessings, and there are emotional and spiritual blessings.  Every day God provides good and wonderful blessings to our lives.  We just need to open our eyes to these blessings and to look for them.  

In a book called The One Year Book of Hope the author, Nancy Gutherie,  points out, however, that blessings do not always come in the form of things we consider good.  Sometimes blessings come in the form of hardship.  This is because trials and hardships can grant us perspective on what is important and meaningful in a way nothing else can do.  They often lead us on a pathway to the Lord.  As we surrender to the Lord in times of hardship, we find God in a new and vibrant way.  In times of trial God often reveals Himself to us.  He also often gives us a peace that we can find in no other way,

In times of hardship and trial God bends down to us.  He enters into our lives and meets our needs in a personal way.  He not only does that, but He reveals Himself and gives Himself to us in unique ways in those times.  It is because of this, in those times we receive God's blessings.  We receive God's blessings in and because of the trials.  We find the blessing in the Lord Himself and not in material outward things or in our own perceived achievements.  

So let's heed the words of Romans 12:12 which says, "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, be faithful in prayer."  Let us rejoice in our hope that we have in an all powerful and loving God.  Let's be patient in trials and difficult times, for the Lord is there to encourage and comfort,  Finally, let us be steadfast and always be in prayer, for He has promised to hear and answer our prayers.  Let us thank God for His blessings.