Awaited Blessings

The following is a devotion I had the blessing of contributing for the November newsletter for the Christian website, Halas & Phos, Salt & Light, run my dear friends, Tim and Cindy Mrva.  Hop on over and take a look around. 

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There are so many things I’d like to teach my children to do: how to cook a meal other than hot dogs or pizza, how to clip a dog’s hair, how to plant a garden according to season and light, how to better prioritize their lives to reap the best benefits, how to save money and how to give it, how to study God’s Word. But they’re so busy running here and there and their vision for the future doesn’t see much past tomorrow.

I wonder how much the Lord wants to teach us, too--how to cook a meal for an ill neighbor, how to care for God’s creation, how to plant seeds of the gospel and how to water them, how to better prioritize our lives to reap godliness, how to give generously, how to love Him and how to better receive His love. But we’re so busy.

God’s creation begins to slow down in autumn and it calls to us to contemplate with it. Leaves gently change color and invite us to stand and look at their beauty. The crisp air slows our bustling to enjoy its fresh aroma. Even Thanksgiving beckons us to sit a while with loved ones and happily chatter all at once about the previous year’s events and reminisce about days gone by.

Yes, it’s been a difficult year, but we still have much to be thankful for. And if we will only slow down our mad running from this to that to the other and be still, we will be able to look around and see again all the ways God has blessed us and give Him thanks.

And as we’re still, giving thanks for blessings already bestowed, God invites us to call to Him that we might discover the blessed mysteries we have yet to know that He so longs to reveal to us.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

Our Father’s love for us is terrifyingly wonderful. He desires to teach us all things crucial for a blessed and fruitful life and they are ours if we will only linger at His table, and listen, and be inspired with awe at our Father’s goodness.