The Greatest Blessing

There is a hymn which goes, "Count your blessings, name them one by one.  Count your many blessings see what God hath done!"  This song gets it right.  The blessings are not the end in themselves, but the gracious outflow of a loving Father and merciful Savior.  Sometimes we look at blessings as "overtly beneficial things that make my life comfortable" because we are naturally self-centered.  Blessing can be disguised with trial, failure, and loss.  Often we do not realize how blessed we are until we lose what we have.

I am a big Charger fan and yesterday the Chargers lost a playoff game in terrible fashion.  It's one thing to be whipped by solid play, but it is another thing entirely to give the game away through mistakes, penalties, sloppy play, and bad fundamentals.  Laura and I were talking about sports and how a loss by a team can affect people's attitudes and outlooks.  Movies, music, and sports among other things have the capacity to affect the way we feel and treat others.  As I turned on the radio today a talk show host said "Today is a day of mourning..." because of the Charger's surprising collapse.  A co-worker joked that his friend had to "be put on suicide watch" because how hard he took the loss.  Yet even in loss there is great blessing.  We gain an appreciation for what we have and what God has done.  How critical it is to keep proper perspective!

I saw a home video of the horrible earthquake in Haiti.  What was most intriguing to me about the clip was the sound.  The screen shook, glass was heard breaking in the background, the lights suddenly went out, and for twenty seconds it sounded like a train passed through the apartment as bricks and rubble scattered.  There was eerie silence for about five seconds and then panicked screams of women, men shouting, complete pandemonium of hysterical voices in pitch darkness.  For all I know people screamed because of injury, perhaps a child was lost, a family member was crushed, or half of the house collapsed into the canyon below and possibly Grandpa and Grandma alive under tons of masonry and mud.  It sounded just like hell, people screaming in oppressive blackness.  I've caught a glimpse of the aftermath through pictures and it isn't pretty:  dead and the dying, people crying, many wounded, and the widespread destruction.  To be depressed because the team I support didn't make it to the Super Bowl this year seems almost a sin.  Tears in San Diego were shed because the Chargers lost:  were tears shed when the reports came out of Haiti?

The Chargers lost and the world did not end.  A tragic earthquake occurred in Haiti and the world did not end.  But the world will have an end, and we have only the days allotted us by our wonderful Creator.  God has blessed us immensely in America, and He has blessed every single person in Haiti:  He has given us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  He alone has the power to save us from the power of the grave and grant us eternal life whether we die in our beds, during a plane crash, or by a heart attack.  Let us pray for those who suffer that we might suffer with them.  Ask God to enlarge your heart so you might feel compassion and love where only selfishness is currently found.  Plead that God would reveal what is important in life.  You know what is important?  Life.  Eternal life is only found in Jesus Christ.  Jesus says in John 10:10:  "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."  Jesus died that we might live.  He laid down His life so we might all have life through Him.  There is no greater blessing than our God.

It took taking frigid showers in Tel Aviv, Israel to put a thankfulness in my heart whenever I have the benefit of a hot shower.  It took lack to recognize a blessing I had taken for granted my whole life.  We need these "perspective," re-focusing moments during our lives.  Make sure your lens is fixed on what really matters.