“Sing
praise to The Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of
His holy name; for His anger is but for a moment, yet His favor is for
life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the
morning.” Psalm 30:4-5
It
is too easy to get caught up in the disappointments life brings. Because
we live in a fallen world and are by nature a fallen people, we need help in
remembering we have so much going for us, so much to be thankful for even if we
do not always see it. And when we can fully realize the blessings we
enjoy, however great or small, and can remember these blessings come to us from
The Lord rather than by our own hands, we can then perhaps remember how deeply
we are loved.
There
is a catch, however. We have to stop being so busy that we do not or will
not take the time to notice the little things that bring the greatest
blessings. Yet we cannot become so un-busy that we have too much time to
dwell on the negative. This is when the little things that don’t amount
to a hill of beans can soon seem to be insurmountable problems. To dwell
on a harsh word spoken, to spend too much time worrying about spiteful people
who are not going to be kind to you no matter what you do, or to worry too much
about money you never had and will likely never have is all time wasted on
things and persons who do not deserve your attention anyway. Frankly I
think this is the wisdom behind the biblical prohibitions against “coveting”;
we spend so much time pining for what we do not have that we are not free to
appreciate what we do have.
It
is often said that a good night’s sleep will always change perspective.
That is, once we “restart” our minds with much-needed rest, we realize what we
were fretting about wasn’t worth the time or that it wasn’t as bad as we
initially thought. Even in the middle of the day, however, when we cannot
always shut down and sleep, we can pray (and if praying has become such a
burden to us that we will not make time for it, we have bigger
problems!). One way or the other, we must find a way to “close the door”
(Matthew 6:6) to situations that bear down on us and persons who seem
determined to do us harm.
We
don’t have to fight back against these situations and persons who get us down
even though our fallen nature inclines us to such action, but that only takes
us down to another level. But when we look upward in that moment of
solitude and peace, we can feel and appreciate what is being given to us.
We can find that peace of mind which can come only from The Lord. And we
are assured we will be renewed and comforted and reminded of what is important.
Get
rid of the negatives in your life, and shut out the people who have proven
themselves to be enemies to you and to the Church (if they mistreat you, they
will mistreat others; you can count on that. They are NOT friends of The
Lord.). This is what we have the power to do, and it is what we
must do. Then we can “have eyes to see”. Then we can “have ears to
hear”. Then we can – and will – “give thanks at the remembrance of The
Holy Name”.
Blessings,
Michael
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