The New Year is upon us. I hope you will join me in counting your blessings in 2024. For several years now, I have been keeping a daily log of how my day went, from excellent, to good, to average, to bad, to terrible. This year, however, I suffered a complete computer crash and lost my progress. That’s okay. I will start over in January.
Are you counting YOUR blessings? I said this a month ago, just before Thanksgiving, but it rings true today as we wrap up the Christmas season: The fact of the matter is, you can find plenty of reasons not to be thankful this time of year. The Devil gives us daily opportunities to be bitter, depressed, frustrated, and angry. If we were to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and write on the left side all the reasons we have to complain, I bet we could get a pretty good list going.
What about the right side?
Can we tally up our blessings, too? I hope so. They’re there to be counted, but it’s not always easy to find them. The bad days stick out like a sore thumb. The hardships tend to linger in our minds. A passing treat from a friend, an encouraging text from a mentor, or a random, unprovoked kiss from our spouse can lift our spirits, but how often do we remember them six months later? It’s tough to remember what we’re thankful for because the bad things create a fog in our minds.
So be it. It’s hard. Okay. You can’t list all your blessings in five minutes. Fine. Don’t. Which ones CAN you list? List them. Then, go on about your day, pausing throughout the day to thank God for the blessings you remember. At the end of the day, try again, and see if you can add just one more thing to the list. Then do the same tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Who knows, by New Year’s Eve a year from now, you just might have a pretty good list of blessings you have counted.
The fact is, you ARE blessed. It just might take a little elbow-work to see it. So be it. Put in the work, and be thankful all the same.
~Matthew