A praise song that speaks deep into my heart is Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman:
Blessed be your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where the streams of abundance flow
Blessed be your name
Blessed be your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name
Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in,
Lord, still I will say...
Blessed be the name of the Lord
I love this song. It reminds me that the test of my faith is found in the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart. What comes out of me is evidence of what is inside me. Am I filled with thankfulness to God or bitterness and resentments? Every year Thanksgiving reminds me that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart are to be a thankful response for the wonderful love that God has poured out to everyone of us in His Son, our Lord.
This song causes me to ponder two basic questions:
Can I appreciate and love God when life is hard?
Can I appreciate and love God when everything is going right?
You wouldn’t think praising God in times of abundance would be a challenge, but it can be. It is so easy to forget whom the goodness comes from and attribute it to circumstance or ourselves. In times of abundance we can quickly forget to thank the Lord from whom all blessings flow. When life is hard and things don’t go according to our plans we can slip into bitterness and lose faith and trust in the Lord. Faith is the assurance of the sure and certain hope we have in the goodness and love of God whether we have much or little; whether life is easy or hard.
The longest section of the Heidelberg Catechism is titled simply, Thankfulness. And teaches us that God has saved us at great expense so that “in our whole life we may show the ourselves grateful to God for his goodness”. For Christians, Thanksgiving is not just a day in November. Thanksgiving is the life we a called to live as followers of Jesus.
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Optimism, pessimism; good times, bad times: we all need to keep our center, which is another word for the soul, and we must all communicate. "Resolve what stands between you and your loved one." Start a conversation with AJEMediation.com.
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