Can you imagine how refreshing it could be to pick up your phone and use it for something other than responding to text alerts, email notifications, and the pings of an app? To allow that device in your hand to contribute to your actual, overall well being as opposed to distracting you from the life unfolding all around it? It can be done!
A few years ago, especially in times of distress, I started writing down any blessings I noticed around me. Sometimes, I would plot out these new-found treasures within the fresh, crisp pages of a newly purchased journal. However, more recently, for about the last 3 years or so, I’ve opted for the convenience of an app (just like what you might keep your grocery list or to-do list in).
Our device of choice can actually be our blessing if we use it in the right ways. The beauty of using an app as a “Blessing Tracker” is two-fold in its tremendous simplicity and accessibility. It just so happens to be perfect for jotting down the activities of a God who can literally make His move in any place, at any time, and through any person or situation.
Originally, these lists served as a tangible proof of an intangible faith. The documented eyewitness accounts reinforced the notion that if God provided once before He could and would again. Over time, these singular, bulleted testimonies could also be reviewed as a more concerted assemblage pointing to a larger tale being told. Isolated instances transformed into a cohesive, exquisite validation of an interwoven thread, revealing His sovereign hand at work throughout my life.
Eventually, the proclivity to remember blessings was enhanced by belief: a belief that beyond a shadow of a doubt our God is absolutely good, loyal to His promises, protective and restorative. He was and is a deliverer who can use any circumstance for His glory. I no longer need to remember the lists living in my phone as frequently as I did several years ago. Instead, there is a present and profound trust living inside of me.
The lists grow exponentially when I’m intentional about seeking His blessings out, especially when I’m still enough to notice. How else could I end up with a list of “Quarantine Blessings” showcasing 54 examples of His presence revealed in perfect timings and more-than-sufficient provisions during the beginning of 2020?…or another list of 76 blessings during the time immediately preceding, during, and after my mom’s unexpected passing in 2019?
The blessings will yield blessings! They bless at the time of bestowing and yet again upon remembrance. If you share those testimonies, they have the potential to bless even still. Try keeping a list of your own! What can you notice today? Tomorrow? How will you choose track them? An App? A voice-recorded text? Do you have another idea? Drop it in the comments. I’d LOVE to hear about it, and I’m sure others will as well!
As I close this week’s post, let’s keep this key verse in mind:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7
Pray:
Father God, thank you for all the ways you have provided for me in the past. I know you are still at work today, even if I am too busy to notice. I apologize for not noticing enough and for not praising you enough. Open my eyes so that I may better see my circumstances as reflections of your handiwork. Help me to better notice the blessings that are all around me. Please help me to remember that anything good in my life is a gift from you.
In Jesus’ Holy and Precious Name,
Amen
Living Simply With God 