“Say ‘thank You’ to the Lord for being so good, for always being so loving and kind. Has the Lord redeemed you? Then speak out! Tell others He has saved you from your enemies. (Psalms 107:1-2 TLB)
“Hallelujah! Thank You Lord! How good You are. Your love for us continues forever.” Psalms 106:1 TLB)
Imagine a huge glass jar filled with jelly beans. With each jelly bean representing one blessing that God has given to you. Red ones reminding us of the greatest blessing of Jesus Christ, yellow ones for the gift of the sunshine warm and illuminating, green ones for the beauty of creation, even black ones for the storms of life that bring us closer to God. For each blessing, let us give thanks.
Counting our blessings and thanking the Lord for each and every one of them helps us to realize our many blessings. Focusing on blessings helps us to remember what God has done for us. Sometimes it is easy to forget our blessings especially when life’s storms come crashing in.
Even in the storms with Jesus by our side we can turn our focus on the things He has done. We can rejoice in the blessings to come. We can be rejoicing and joyful instead of depressed and in despair knowing and believing that God never breaks a promise. We have the "Blessed Assurance" that our jelly bean jar will continue to fill with beans. Lovely, colorful, sweet, good and perfect things coming only from God will increase our joy. What better way to witness for Jesus than to be joyful?
What if everyday we took just one joyful blessing and focused on that all day? What if we shared that joy and blessing with someone else? Would they not want a little bit of what we have? I think they would.
The jelly bean jar can be deceptive. There are usually more inside the jar than we think. If we actually take them out one by one and count them we find out that God has been blessing us more than we even realized. And jelly beans like blessings are more fun when they are shared. And they are fat free!!
So during this Thanks-Living season as we joyfully and freely gather with our family and friends, let’s start a jelly bean jar. Let’s count our blessings and be joyful and truly, truly thankful. Let’s "count our blessings and name them one by one." Our joy will overflow, as we offer up thanks to the One Who so gracefully gives these good things- let’s do so with a truly grateful heart.
