Warning! Thinking Can Be Hazardous to Your SPIRITUAL Health!

If you've been reading my posts for a while you know that I've written several times about not basing your faith on your feelings. Our faith is grounded in Jesus, who he said he is, and the fact that he NEVER lies, ALWAYS keeps his promises, and is the same yesterday, today and forever. We don't have to understand or know everything - thank goodness! - to love, serve and know him. 


All that hasn't changed, but sometimes I can think myself into a knot - spiritually speaking. Here's what I'm talking about...


Last night I was thinking about how God had blessed us (my husband and me) in a totally unexpected but very welcome way. I was so excited and felt so grateful and starting thanking him. I had such a grateful heart and it was spilling over with praise until...I had a thought. What was that thought? 

Isn't God good even on the bad days? Aren't we blessed abundantly every day?

Then why don't you FEEL this way every day?

Oy vey!

As soon as I thought that I started to FEEL a little guilty about FEELING so grateful and thought that maybe that meant that I wasn't truly grateful after all since I didn't FEEL like this every moment of every day.

See what I mean?  A knot. And now you can say "oy vey!" too, but before you quit reading...I'm done with that. It's just such a perfect representation of my THINKING sometimes.

Then I realized (God intervened here) that I was wrong. Celebrating a blessing and feeling happy and thankful does not mean I don't recognize that God is good all the time. It's just normal.

For those of you who are parents, don't you love it when you give a gift to your child -something material they've wanted, or your time, or a compliment - and they get excited, jump up and down, run around the house, or just light up from the inside? Don't you take pleasure in their pleasure and excitement? Of course you do! Don't you secretly want to be the aunt or uncle or grandparent that gives the 'coolest' gift, the one they can't put down and look at like it's the best thing to happen since Justin Beiber? (did I spell that right?). Of course. We would never admit it...but it's true!

God is like that. Yes he chastises us because he loves us, but he also blesses us every day just because he can and he delights in our pleasure. 

"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts

to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven 

give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matt 7:11

Notice that is not a question but an emphatic statement! Yes God is a good God, all the time. We so often miss the daily blessings even when we are thankful, so why should we not be excited and joyful when we truly feel that way? 

Maybe you don't have this problem. If not that's great! If you're like me and your thinking interferes sometimes with your expression of praise and thankfulness, try to remember the picture of a little child celebrating something so exciting she can't contain herself. She is a picture of joy from head to toe, and she's not quiet about it, either. 

Jesus told us that we should become like little children. Not childish and immature, but with the same open hearts, freely expressing love and accepting it. Sometimes we are so grown up and 'sophisticated' that we miss it. 

I don't want to do that. I want to enjoy the pure please of a blessing I didn't earn and don't deserve and gush over with excitement and thankfulness to my Lord who loves me and delights in my pleasure. 

Sometimes I don't need to think...I just need to experience the love of God. He is so good!

How about you? Do you ever 'think' too much and miss a blessing? 

Thanks for stopping by today. I'm praying for you.

Sherri