Happy

Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is he who has forgiveness of his transgression continually exercised upon him, whose sin is covered.  Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.  Psalm 32:1-2

I recently heard a fantastic presentation at work about stress management.  One of the keys to living a "less-stressed" life was to be grateful more often... 

God created us to live an abundant life-so much so that His Son died on the cross to save each one of us.  Just knowing that our sins are forgiven should be enough to satisfy us and make us all happy, but sadly, many of us are not. 

If you are like me, much of your time may be devoted to doing good and noble things such as serving God, but we can also burden ourselves and miss the simple blessings that He has in store for us.  We need to slow down and take the time to just be grateful for the mercy and forgiveness we have all been freely given. 

I think that God is less concerned with how much we 'do' as long as He knows that we love Him first and foremost in our lives.  Just knowing that He extended His loving grace to each of us by paying the ultimate price should be enough to make us all happy.  He loves us, so let's enjoy it more!!

Born of Frustration

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Psalm 34:8

Our oldest son, Elliott, received several Lego sets for Christmas this past year.  The problem is that he is only five and many of the sets are made for children between the ages of 6-8 years of age.  Needless to say, I have been busy over the past few weeks helping Elliott build Lego(s).  He enjoys playing with them after I provided some assistance, but I know that he becomes easily frustrated that he cannot build the Lego sets on his own.

Much the same, I truly believe that the reason God allows us to experience trails and sorrow in our lives is so that we might learn that He has the power to sustain and provide for us all things that produce earthly blessings.  All of God’s children go through storms in their journeys through life.

We must remember that it is while we are in the “ going through” stages of any crisis or trial that God’s peace becomes clear to all.  Praise be to God!