What is it that makes us blessed in life? Sometimes it’s all a matter of perspective, of how we look at what we have, of where we are in life, of what is going on in life. I don’t know the exact source of the following information, but it illustrates well the need for perspective.
If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are in the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won’t survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of prison, the agony of torture, or the pain of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend worship without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion in the world.
With perspective, we can see life’s blessings aren’t in the big, extravagant things in life, but in the everyday, the ordinary, the blessings that allow us to have life each day. Sometimes, even those things we wouldn’t necessarily call blessings can be some of the best things to happen to us. Paul gives us a different perspective on life when he shared what his thorn in the flesh did for him. “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).
While life is typically lived in what may be the called the ordinary, there are a variety of experiences we will encounter that are unique to everyday living, some good, some bad. There are those experiences that are positive and wonderful, experiences that make us feel we’re on top of the world. There are those experiences that are negative and depressing, experiences that seem to drain us of our will and energies, which create fear, doubt, and depression. These experiences, both good and bad, are part of living in the world we’re in, one that reflects both the goodness of God’s creative and continuing blessings, and the corruption that is in the world due to sin and its influence. Everyone who lives on the face of the earth will face both kinds of experiences. Everyone will experience the death of a loved one. Everyone will experience disappointment and regrets. With the exception of those alive when the Lord returns, everyone will die. The issue, then, isn’t that there are problems to face in life, but how we face those problems.
We need to stop and count our blessings in the trials of life, to keep our focus where it should be, our lives lived where they must be, our hope alive for the future as it will be. How can we do this? Literally write down life’s problems vs. God’s blessings and see which is greater. As the song says, “It will surprise you what the Lord has done.” Spend time in the spiritual, reading Scripture, praying, and singing hymns of praise to God. It will “help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.” As Peter reminds us, we should cast “all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7). Remember where we are headed, having a reward in heaven, a home on high, an abode that money can’t buy nor troubles destroy.
Life is filled with all kinds of experiences, and while most of them are what we would call just the normal, everyday events of life, some can seem overwhelmingly discouraging. Don’t forget everyone has difficulties to deal with in life, and no matter great or small, they all are hard to deal with. Adversity is just part of what is true of life; don’t let difficult times rob you of your joy in the Lord, which is the other side of life. If you are in Christ, you have blessings beyond measure, a help for today and a hope for tomorrow. “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).
Robert Johnson
