Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost
being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all
his benefits— (Psalm 103: 1-2)
Yesterday, I encouraged us to deal with 2017’s sins. Today, we need to remember the good things. People who know me know that I tend toward the negative. It’s easy to whine and grumble. One of the fastest ways to lose my respect is to praise me effusively. When I worked in retail, we were encouraged to manipulate people toward perfect survey scores. My bosses weren’t fond of the fact that in my opinion, a perfect survey score was proof that the customer was either blind or stupid. (You would not have enjoyed being my boss.)
As I look back at the past year, the only positive that comes to mind is that I finished the rough draft for my story. Digging a little deeper, I got new gutters on the house. I’m sure that if I thought about it, which is exactly what I’m suggesting that you do, I’d come up with more. But I’d like you to take another look at my short list. Do you notice the prevalent, universal subject? I’m doing vocaleses: mi-mi-mi-mi-mi. What good did I accomplish? There is something positive in that. We need to recognize the good that we do – in a sober, reasonable manner. We need to be honest. Part of honesty is recognizing what God has done in our lives.
That’s not always an easy task. We may notice the show-stoppers but after a while, even those fade into the noisy background of our lives. Now is the time of the year we need to drag them back on stage and applaud them again. We also know that every breath we take, every move we make… He has caused or allowed. He deserves our gratitude every second of every day, but especially at the end of the year, as we pack away 2017, we need to dust off the treasures, old and new, big and little, and thank God for them one more time.
Yesterday, I encouraged us to deal with 2017’s sins. Today, we need to remember the good things. People who know me know that I tend toward the negative. It’s easy to whine and grumble. One of the fastest ways to lose my respect is to praise me effusively. When I worked in retail, we were encouraged to manipulate people toward perfect survey scores. My bosses weren’t fond of the fact that in my opinion, a perfect survey score was proof that the customer was either blind or stupid. (You would not have enjoyed being my boss.)
As I look back at the past year, the only positive that comes to mind is that I finished the rough draft for my story. Digging a little deeper, I got new gutters on the house. I’m sure that if I thought about it, which is exactly what I’m suggesting that you do, I’d come up with more. But I’d like you to take another look at my short list. Do you notice the prevalent, universal subject? I’m doing vocaleses: mi-mi-mi-mi-mi. What good did I accomplish? There is something positive in that. We need to recognize the good that we do – in a sober, reasonable manner. We need to be honest. Part of honesty is recognizing what God has done in our lives.
That’s not always an easy task. We may notice the show-stoppers but after a while, even those fade into the noisy background of our lives. Now is the time of the year we need to drag them back on stage and applaud them again. We also know that every breath we take, every move we make… He has caused or allowed. He deserves our gratitude every second of every day, but especially at the end of the year, as we pack away 2017, we need to dust off the treasures, old and new, big and little, and thank God for them one more time.
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