Sunday, August 30, 2009

Am I counting my blessings?

My answer today is yes, but I am very behind in my counting. I was reading or listening to something recently that talked about how we pray for things, but then when the answers come, we take them for granted and forget to thank God for His provision. After gaining this insight, I realized that I owed God a HUMUNGOUS thank you! Here is the long story of the reason for my thank you: :)

Most of you know that I often have trouble sleeping. Last night was a semi-bad night for me. Nothing major, I just woke up a lot, but would fall right back to sleep. It also required a changing of my environment each time because I was either too hot or too cold :). Sorry, that was a tangent. I started thinking this morning about how long it has been since I have had a spell of repeated bad nights of sleep. I could not remember the last time this has happened! I also think it coincides with another change I made in my life. Several months ago, I was dissatisfied with the amount of time I was spending in prayer and in the Word, so I made a difficult decision for me. I decided to get up 30 minutes earlier in order to spend at least 30 minutes of good, focused time with God. Now, when you are already tired because you don't feel like you're getting enough sleep, this seems like a huge sacrifice. But I did it. That, topped with my commitment to not do anything for pleasure on the computer until I've spent these 30 minutes, has equaled two things:

1. Very consistent time in the Word.
2. Much more consistent, good sleep.

All of that to say, I often forget to thank God for the answers to prayers (and frankly, I liked this answer better than if He had said I needed to exercise more which is one of many suggestions I got on ways to improve my sleeping!). So, my question for my readers tonight is....Are you counting your blessings and thanking God for answered prayer?

1 comment:

Mom said...

Very good post. I often forget to thank God for the good he has done for me. This post will help me to remember. Thank you!