Friday, October 28, 2016

October 28, 2016: Too Many To Count!

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2016 - Day 302  

Devotional Song:  … GO TO THIS LINK …  Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images from a Guy Penrod singing the old hymn version os … Count Your Blessings … which exhorts us to take account of all God has done for us, especially when we’re encumbered by the trials of life.

 
Highlight Verse[s]: Psalm 139:17-18 [NKJV] …  
17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; and when I awake, I am still with You. 
… King David sings of how precious are God’s gifts (i.e., blessings) … too many to count. 
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Highlight Context: Psalms 139:14-18 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK 
… God, in song, delineates the wonders of His blessings in our life.
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Reference Passage #1 … Psalm 40:5 [NKJV] …  
5  Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. 
… Clearly, … we cannot even count all of God’s blessings in our life, can we?

Reference Passage #2 … Romans 8:28 [NKJV] …  
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 
…With this truth, we need to reflect and count our blessings every day, remembering how God delivers us thru times of trial.

My Journal for Today:  … Our Daily Bread author, Keila Ochoa, in teaching, for the second OBD entry in a row, about God’s blessings, uses a personal story. She wrote: My son is learning to count from one to ten [see attached photo]. He counts everything from toys to trees. He counts things I tend to overlook, like the wildflowers on his way to school or the toes on my feet. My son is also teaching me to count again. 
Often I become so immersed in things I haven’t finished or things I don’t have that I fail to see all the good things around me. … My ten fingers are not enough to count all that God gives me day by day. 

Okay, (I say to God), … I get it! … Two days in a row the ODB entries, by two separate independent authors, have reminded readers (me) that God’s blessings are so gracefully given that we, so very often, either miss them, take them for granted, or just don’t see them as blessings. And I think this is especially true when we encounter the trials of life and we are encompassed by hardships or pain.

But, as Guy Penrod sings in the linked song and King David wrote in his two songs cited today, we so often need to sit down, as Keila Ochoa’s son did, and count those things around us which God has given us for our own good (see also Romans 8:28).

My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … Thank You, Lord, for the repeated reminder to take note of Your providence and blessings in my life. … Amen  

Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.

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