Here Again

How did I get here again? Well, I forgot to practice. I have spent so much time lately encouraging others with Truth that I forgot to tell myself. Funny how that happens. We know the Truth but unless we practice Truth it doesn't really sink into the depths of our hearts... just like doing intense Bible study and stopping before applying it to our lives. Have we then learned anything at all?

"Never give thanks for blessings you can see without remembering the blessings you can’t see. When you give thanks for a clean bill of health, enough money to take a vacation, rain for crops, or the food on the table, be sure to keep going until you get to the spiritual, a.k.a. lasting, benefits we have received in Christ. We are thankful for forgiveness of sins, love that never ceases, the presence of God, and a mission. These are things we can be thankful for even when everything we see with our eyes looks wretched.

Over-practice. Use any excuse to get back to the cross itself and then—do it again.

I can see a style of thought in myself that goes something like this. If my “thankful” list is longer than my “complaint” list, then I am on the right path. The problem is that I can have dozens of items on the thankful list and only one on the complaint list, and the severity of the complaint outweighs everything I am thankful for. Only the blessings we have received in Christ are weighty enough to counterbalance those especially hard events of life. But these blessings in Christ won’t outweigh our difficulties unless we over-practice reciting them."
- Ed Welch, When in Doubt - Over-practice