Count Your Blessings

Count Your Blessings

I Kings 17-19

The story is told of a Family gathering at Thanksgiving. Mother and Dad went to one of the daughter’s for the traditional feast. Knowing how gullible the daughter was, mom decided to play a trick. She told her that she needed something from the store.

When the daughter left, mom took the turkey out of the oven. She removed the stuffing, stuffed a Cornish hen, inserted it into the turkey, and re-stuffed the turkey. She then placed the birds back in the oven.

When it was time for dinner, the daughter pulled the turkey out of the oven and proceeded to remove the stuffing. When her serving spoon hit something, she reached in and pulled out the little bird.

With a look of total shock on her face, mother exclaimed, ’Patricia, you’ve cooked a pregnant bird!’ At the reality of this horrifying news, the daughter started to cry. It took the family two hours to convince her that turkeys lay eggs!

Have you ever tried to

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS?

Ephesians 1:3

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in the heavenly realms

with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

(NIV)

John 1:16

16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received

one blessing after another.

(NIV)

It is easier to BEEF about our burdens

than to BRAG about God’s blessings!

Perhaps Daniel Defoe gave us some good advice through his fictitious character Robinson Crusoe. The first thing that Crusoe did when he found himself on a deserted island was to make out a list. On one side of the list he wrote down all his problems. On the other side of the list he wrote down all of his blessings. On one side he wrote: I do not have any clothes. On the other side he wrote: But it’s warm and I don’t really need any. On one side he wrote: All of the provisions were lost. On the other side he wrote: But there’s plenty of fresh fruit and water on the island. And on down the list he went. In this fashion he discovered that for every negative aspect about his situation, there was a positive aspect, something to be thankful for. It is easy to find ourselves on an island of despair. Perhaps it is time that we sit down and take an inventory of our blessings. I well imagine that there are some of us here this morning that are long, long overdue in expressing our thanks to God.

One man said: I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side into a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, "This is the Receiving Section. Here all petitions are received that are sent to God in prayer."

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor to the second section.

There angel said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them."

I noticed again how busy it was there. Since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth, there were many angels working hard at that station.

Finally, at the farthest end of the long corridor, we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, not doing anything at all. "This is the Acknowledgment Section," my angel friend quietly whispered to me. He seemed embarrassed

"How is it that there is no work going on here?" I asked.

"It’s so sad," the angel sighed. "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments ."

"How does one acknowledge God’s blessings?" I asked.

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Lord."

"What blessings should they acknowledge?" I asked.

"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who have that opportunity.

"And if you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day. If you’ve never experienced fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are more blessed than 700 million other people in the world.