Day 2643 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 1:21 NIV

Complaining. Taking things for granted. Failing to see the beauty in the countless blessings we receive each and every day. Being able to find the worst in any given situation so that we can maintain this victim's mentality that keeps us believing that we somehow deserve better than life's trials and tribulations. As humans, we seem to have this innate inability to be thankful. It's almost as if we simply want to be angry, or dissatisfied, or disappointed, or doubtful. But why?

Yesterday we discussed the Israelites and their grumbling against God as they began their journey through the desert toward freedom from their lives of slavery in Egypt. They just had their lives changed for the better as they were no longer forced into hard work and enslavement to Pharaoh, yet they didn't care about the big picture. They were focused on the difficulty and the desolation into which they were venturing. They took their eyes off the enormous gift they'd just been given and became angry and full of doubt and discontent because that gift didn't look the way they wanted it to look.

Again, tell me we don't do that exact same thing all the time. God answers prayers. He listens as we cry out to Him from the midst of our suffering and uncertainty. He pours out His blessings through guidance, deliverance, and strength to endure the trials we face. He gives us everything we need to be who He made us to be and do what He created us to do. Yet, it's not good enough. We still whine. We still complain. We still wake up every morning with our hearts set on searching for things we don't like about the life that we've been given to live and the way in which we have to live it.

We spend so much time complaining about the minute inconveniences that we allow ourselves to miss out on seeing all of the tremendous blessings we've been given in which we should be thankful. But our hearts cannot be thankful when they're constantly set on being angry over not getting our way. Oh, we're blessed. We're sent new blessings every single day. We're blessed beyond measure and far more than our sinful ways deserve. Problem is that we're not blessed how we want to be blessed through the fulfillment of all that our hearts desire. We're not given these lives of unending comfort and simplicity that we so crave, and therefore, thankfulness is rarely found on our lips let alone in our hearts.

Instead, we focus on grumbling about the difficulty of it all. We gripe about how hard the road is that leads us to the gifts that we don't deserve in the first place. We allow our hearts to darken as we lean toward doubting in God's goodness and faithfulness because our blessings come in a form or at a time that we choose to not understand and therefore not appreciate. Our thinking becomes futile as it turns to constant thoughts of how hard our lives are and how much we wish we still had this or that or some easier road to take. And through it all, our gratitude and thanksgiving falls by the wayside and God's well-deserved glorification becomes an afterthought because we're busy thinking about ourselves.

The simple fact is that God is more kind, more generous, more giving, more fulfilling than our wretched minds can comprehend. We fail to see His goodness because our hearts are still set in this world and enslaved to the desires that we think will bring us more of what we want than the narrower path that God asks us to follow. We find our hearts growing darker as doubt consumes more and more of our thoughts all because we still think we deserve to have our lives unfold as we want them to, filled with all the worldly things and creature comforts that we just can't seem to let go of craving.

The Israelites just witnessed God send plague after plague upon Egypt in order to gain their freedom from the lives of slavery that they were stuck living in a place far from their ancestral homes. They witnessed this great deliverance, and yet they were angry and disappointed and filled with doubt because they failed to trust God to continue to be the same God who did all those miraculous things that He did to lead them out of slavery. They were on their way back to where they belonged, to this amazing Promised Land and the fulfilment of every prayer for freedom and salvation that they had prayed. Yet because they weren't there yet, because it happened in God's timing according to His will and not their own, they succumbed to anger and doubt.

Friends, we've seen God at work in our lives. We've felt His loving touch in our hearts as He has picked up back up after we've stumbled and fallen. We've seen the work He's done in walking with us through times that we thought we'd never survive. We've seen Him bring healing, and deliverance, and mercy into our lives countless times before. But still we allow our hearts to doubt because we stop looking at all that He's done and focus our attention on all the self-perceived lack that we still think we have in our lives. We eventually stop being thankful for the lives we're living and the countless blessings they're filled with because our hearts are still consumed with this desire to have it our way.

Folks, let God be God. Let Him do what needs to be in the timing that it needs to done in. Just appreciate this journey. No, it won't always go like we expect it to go. It won't be filled with all the things that our hearts have learned to desire. In fact, at times it may be pretty daunting and seemingly void of anything good or comfortable at all. But He is still good. He is still that same God who has shown Himself to be almighty, faithful, and trustworthy all those times before. Giving doubt or anger or any other negative thing room in our hearts will only pull us away from Him and plant this seed of distrust in our minds. And that's never going to help this path of faith that we're walking on.

Rather than living our lives consumed with all the things that we don't have, that we don't even need, let us be thankful for all that we have that we don't deserve. Let us thank our Father for the countless blessings that He sends us every day that we tend to overlook as we focus on what we want instead. Let's set our hearts on glorifying Him, not being angry at Him for not giving us our way. He deserves every ounce of thankfulness and gratitude that we can possibly offer in the time we have left. And we owe it to ourselves to learn to find the beauty and the appreciation in all that He does for us on a daily basis.

Sometimes in life it may seem like we're barely getting by on a little bit of manna and some water from a rock. But friends, even the smallest of gift is still a blessing we don't deserve, and therefore something that we should be incredibly thankful for having. We can’t afford to waste any more time whining about how hard His path is when it’s that very path that is leading us toward the Promised Land and the fulfillment of every invaluable promise that we’ve been given in Christ.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold