Today while doing my devotions, I came across a verse in Psalm 138: 1-3 which states: “ I will praise You with my whole heart; Before the gods I will sing praises to You. I will worship toward your holy temple, and praise Your name for your loving kindness and Your truth; For you have magnified Your word above all Your name. In the day I cried out, You answered me and made me bold with strength in my soul.”
As I read this, I began to wonder how many times I have taken God for granted for all of the wonderful things and blessings He has given me. How many times have I failed to proclaim Him? How many times have I cried out to Him and received what I asked for? More importantly, how many times have I praised and thanked him? In being honest with myself, I know the answer to these questions and sadly I know not nearly enough. What about you? I think it is possible for us all to agree there are improvements each of us could make. More than ever, I am being mindful to give time to stop and praise Jesus for even the simple things – like waking up this morning. It’s so easy to get distracted by all of the things we have competing for our time but we sometimes need to stop and realize that we have been given one more day to enjoy life, creation and fellowship.
There is a saying “what a difference a day makes” – what if we don’t have the time to make a difference? I wonder how many of us are stuck on survive and the rat race that we are not left with anything to give back and therefore miss out on the opportunity to make a difference. A form of tunnel vision begins to implement its self and chokes out our vision and purpose. I saw as this happened in my own life – where I thought I wanted a prestigious job and the American dream. As I started to strive for this goal, I became increasingly unhappy. Why, you may be wondering – well God did not create us to live for ourselves and for us to raise ourselves above everything else. Perhaps, we could even say this form of existence could be called indifference or apathy. We eventually get to a point where we are only looking at ourselves and what’s going on in our own little world and it’s all that seems to matter. When we open our eyes and truly look at the world there is so much we can do and we begin to see everything as an opportunity – it’s all a matter of changing ones perspective. I know from experience, that if you truly want to make a change in your life ask God and He becomes the catalyst to make that happen- He becomes the strength, boldness and hope your soul so desperately longs for. He will put people in your path that will have a similar vision and so begins the journey to becoming free from all of those things that threaten to choke the very life out of you. In return, you will have a deeper more meaningful relationship with God as you watch Him transform your meaningless life into purpose.
Here is another sobering reminder from the book of 2 Timothy 3:1-5 “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying it’s power. And from such people turn away. Let this be a challenge to not be conformed to society’s pressures – don’t settle for comfort without commitment – stand up against this way of life and live the way God intended.
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