“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3 (NIV)
“Lord, open my eyes. Help me to be more aware of the blessings that you have so perfectly and purposefully placed along my path today.”
Have you ever stopped to consider how often we walk right by a blessing from the Lord? Perhaps sometimes we don’t even look up to see the blessing, while other times we look straight at it… but through the lens of the flesh, it doesn’t register as a blessing in our minds. Regardless of the situation, I am convinced that we miss far more of the blessings than we embrace.
I picture a kid standing beneath one of those huge buckets of water at a waterpark. The buzzer sounds, it slowly tilts and suddenly anyone in a 50 foot radius is soaked. For us to walk through even one day without acknowledging the blessings of God would be for the brave child that stood directly beneath the bucket to walk away, dripping wet, yet claiming that he is dry as can be.
Our Father delights in lavishing His blessings upon us. He soaks us in His blessings. They surround our every step! The question is, are we taking the time to notice? Are we recognizing His hand in our day to day? Are we allowing Him to lift us up through His abundant blessings? Are we robbing Him of the delight that He gets in watching His children smile at the ‘small things’ that He does to say, ‘I love you’?
Over the past year, the short prayer above is a prayer that I have tried to include in my every day and throughout the past month, the Lord has reminded me of this very prayer many times. No matter if the day has felt chaotic or I’ve claimed to be bored in the stillness, God has met me with one question, “Did you notice some of my blessings today?”
You see, it’s one thing to pray the prayer above and then just go about your day hoping that God hits you smack in the face with a big ball of blessing, but it’s another to pray the prayer above and to be actively reminded of your request throughout the day. No ball of blessings to the face… just a greater awareness of the blessings that God has ALREADY placed among your steps.
The Lord had been working on this concept of recognizing His blessings in my every day when I took off on a run through the streets of a new town in Kentucky. Having thought I had completely missed the fall season this year, I was elated to see the vibrantly colored trees lining every street. That was a blessing in itself. But as I ran through one spot in particular, the wind picked up. The leaves on the ground combined with the leaves that had fallen from the branches above in the same gust of wind to create a little fall tornado that came straight at me. I closed my eyes to avoid being blinded by dirt and suddenly leaves were striking my body from head to toe. At once the wind died down, the loose leaves dropped onto the street, and the dust settled to the ground.
As I continued on my run I began to take notice of each leaf as it fell from the high branches, floated through the air, and found it’s landing spot on the ground.
“God’s blessings”, I thought.
These leaves had been falling all around me for days, but it wasn’t until after I was blasted in the face by a leaf tornado that I began to recognize each individual, falling leaf. They were falling all around me, and even more so, they coated the ground beneath me. My path was covered in leaves in the same way that the Lord our God covers our paths in His blessings.
As I tuned further into this thought, I began to realize that it wasn’t just the leaves that landed on me during my run that were beautiful. Sure, those were the ones that were the easiest to notice and as I began to see them as God’s blessings, it made me smile each time a leaf came directly to me. But there was the same beauty in watching the other leaves twirl their way to the ground just as there is beauty in watching God’s blessings fall all around us. It’s not just the ones that seem to directly impact our lives or the ball of blessings that smacks us in the face like the mini tornado that I experienced that should lift us up. Why limit ourselves to recognizing and rejoicing in only those blessings?!
My friend, look around! Watch the blessings fall down all around you. Yes, rejoice in the blessings that fall directly upon you, but don’t forget to rejoice with your neighbor when one falls upon them too! Look down at the blessings that cover the path beneath your feet! Look up at the blessings that hang from the Tree of Life above you! Take notice of the blessings that are twirling in the wind all around you.
We, the children of God, have been blessed with every spiritual blessing known to Christ. How could we not be surrounded?
No matter where you are or what you are going through today, be reminded that you are surrounded by the blessings of our great Creator and beautiful Savior! There is nothing that we can do to earn or deserve these little gifts from God, but He lavishes them upon us in abundance.
Just this morning, after this post has been brewing in my mind for weeks, I was reading out of my new ‘The Jesus Bible’. The commentary associated with my morning reading said, “Like God’s offer to the Israelites, those who believe in Christ enter a process of sanctification, of becoming holy – a blessing and benefit on top of forgiveness.”
The process of sanctification, or of becoming more like God is a blessing! Have you ever seen that one twirling in the wind? Me neither! But what a testament to how many blessings surround us – far beyond that which we can see.
As my run through the tree-lined streets came to an end, I reached up to tighten my hairband, instead discovering the leaf that had latched onto the top of my head. How long had it been there? Who knows, but indeed it was there.
Dear brother or sister in Christ, is there a blessing upon you right now that you are unaware of? Take notice. Rejoice. Allow it to lift you up. Give God the glory as He delights in loving you.
Join me in this prayer today and then let’s walk together in actively watching the blessings that are falling all around us.
“Lord, open my eyes. Help me to be more aware of the blessings that you have so perfectly and purposefully placed along my path today.”
