FOLLOW-UP TO Dec. 30, 2017

January 2, 2017

FOLLOW-UP TO Dec. 30, 2017

Step-By-Step

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

2 Corinthians 13:14

On December 30, 2016, I wrote about the new tradition Cheryl and I started last year. Every Sunday morning at breakfast we picked a special blessing from the previous week and make a note of it on a slip of paper. We put the paper in a quart mason jar. On New Year’s Day, we gathered around our Christmas tree and put all those slips of paper in a basket. Then, one by one, we reviewed all of our many blessings from 2016. (And, on January 8, 2017 we will start filling the jar once again!)

You know what we found as we reviewed 2016 don’t you! In the midst of all the circumstances of our lives last year, God came near! In our review, we kept track of the blessings and grouped them by categories. Many weeks we couldn’t decide on just one blessing; often there were two and sometimes three blessings noted for the week. We ended up with seventy-six blessings for the year!

We both tend to be fairly introverted, and so we were a bit shocked to learn that 34% of our blessings related to activities with friends. The second largest category was medical which counted for 21% of our blessings. We did have substantial medical challenges last year, and rejoice because they all ended well. The next two categories were tied at 17% each for time we spent together and for church related activities. Those four categories accounted for 89% of the blessings noted in our Blessing Jar.

An added blessing was reviewing all the slips of paper in our jar. It was so good to take the time to remember special moments with friends and family, places we visited, and above all the unfailing faithfulness of our Abba Father. We encourage you to set up your own Blessing Jar and begin to chronicle your encounters with our amazing God whose “mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.