Blessings & Prayer

Lately I've been trying to make sure that I notice the many blessings in my life. The Lord really is good to me and all too often I pay too much attention to my trials, the difficulties in my life, shortcomings in my character and/or personality and not nearly enough to all the great things God does in my every day life. While it is, however, very important to pay attention to the not-so-pleasant things and learn from them; to dwell on the negative or difficult things is detrimental to our spiritual health and just downright unnecessary. I've been thinking more and more about how amazing it is that God saved me. This is something that's kind of become "normal" or even kind of old for me because I'm so focused on moving ahead in life, growing spiritually, and maturing as a man. What a shame that this isn't always something that makes me want to shout with joy! God saved me; a sinner, someone who hated Him. He saved me and made me His child. That's something to constantly be thankful for. God also gave me a family who loves me and is patient with me, He gave me friends who accept me and help me grow, He gave me a church where I can work to build up His kingdom and am surrounded by people who encourage me and whose lives are an example to me. There's just so much in my life to be thankful for, and so many things that aren't even on my radar that the Lord does for me every second of my life. Be thankful to God for your life. Praise Him for His goodness, His love, His care, and His patience. Don't grumble, don't dwell on the difficulties; but instead rejoice in the fact that God has given you what He's given you and use it to glorify Him with every breath He graciously grants you.

Another thing that's becoming more commonplace in my life (unfortunately quite late) is regular prayer; a deeper communion with God. I'm starting to see the importance of bringing everything to God and truly trusting Him with it. I'll be honest, my prayer life is pretty weak. I'm working on fixing that, but for a long time this wasn't something that I saw as being all that important and therefore I didn't actively work on it. I've been seeing the horrible flaw with this kind of thinking and just how much it has stunted my spiritual growth. What I've been doing recently is making prayer lists for different days of the week and actually making myself stick to them. It's such a simple thing to do, but it has very unfortunately taken me a long time to figure that out. I've experienced a HUGE blessing in seeing God actually answering prayers and seeing that He does actively work in our lives. I urge all of you to be intentional about your prayer lives if you aren't already doing so. Don't be like me, be proactive in prayer!