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Forget None of His Benefits

            Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)

            The next piece of my homework involves the benefits listed in today’s passage. The first step, of course, is to list the benefits:

1)     Forgiveness of sins

2)     Healing of diseases

3)     Redemption of life from the pit

4)     Crowns with love

5)     Crowns with compassion

6)     Satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.


Next come the crucial questions. What causes us to forget them? How can we remind ourselves? The immediate answer that comes to mind is one I’ve ranted about many times. Pain, fear, anger, frustration, anxiety, and probably every other negative emotion tends to reduce the universe to the size of that emotion and its cause. If I hurt, all that matters is that hurt and making it go away. Consider the pandemic, with the number of people who were verbally assaulting people for not wearing masks – and felt completely justified. Some of those folks claim to be Christians.

I suspect that good times, wealth, power, fame, love, and other positives might lead us to forget the benefits as well. If we aren’t conscious of sin in our life, if we aren’t sick, if we aren’t in a pit, if we’re getting love (or at least attention) from somewhere else, if we don’t feel the need for compassion, or we are satisfied with good things, we may forget the source of all good things.

One key to remembering those benefits, then, would seem to be to avoid being either assaulted by negative emotions nor seduced by positive ones. At least, it would help if we were aware of our emotional state and recognized the effect it is likely to have. Knowing that I am angry, or in pain, or afraid and therefore not thinking straight and in need of extra measures of reminder would help. Too often, I may wander through mental bogs for a month before considering the fact that I’m depressed or otherwise emotionally lost and in need of reminders.

The better solution is probably habit. If you are in the habit of worship, confession, fellowship, Bible study and memorization, journaling, listening to worship music or good preachers, reading good books on spiritual matters, prayer, solitude, and whatever other spiritual disciplines you tend to practice, the practicing of them is likely to turn your focus Godward.

The last question in the homework is what one thing I (you) would like God's help with in relationship to these teachings, and one truth from it that I (you) are particularly thankful for. The easy answer to the first part of that for me is attitude! But the thing that I seem to struggle with is definitions. I read about people like David and it seems as though God talked to him, performed miracles on his behalf, etc., on a daily basis. And it seems to me that I don't hear from God for long periods - sometimes months. And God did such big things for David, but for me they seem small. But on what standard should I be judging these things? 

 As for the thing I am particularly thankful for, it's the exact same thing that I feel I am missing - God has directed me in the past. He's made it clear to me that He will continue to do so. I am grateful for that direction even if I'm not fond of the direction given. 

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