I simply don't count my blessings. I speak for myself because I'm the only one whose heart I really know. Although, IF I had to guess, I would think that this is a general failure among California Christians.
It's so so easy to count all the things that suck. Work sucks, I know....(90's ref). School sucks. Sometimes even serving can be difficult. Loving people is difficult. Hmmm loving other people.... that one seems to shed light on the problem. Most people don't have a problem loving themselves. Even those who are hard on themselves, certainly love themselves. Just a thought, maybe people who beat themselves up do so because they lack something that would otherwise allow them to love themselves more.
Granted, I don't think the bible says that you should hate yourself. Sometimes Christians use the term "first love." Obviously that should be God, but is your second love yourself? Now I don't know exactly what should be second, third, fourth love for people. It's probably dependent on relationships and circumstances unique to every person but I'm pretty sure love for yourself should be relatively low in the list.
I think one thing that I love too much is my pride. I don't want it hurt or challenged. I want to be right and I want to be the best. Even though I know I'm not, I don't want anyone to tell me because it hurts my pride. Which, like so many other things to be worked on, pride seems to be the problem with recognizing our blessings.
I think our complaints are often caused by this sentiment that we deserve better or we deserve more than what we're getting. I think last time I talked about blessings, I ended with God being enough. And certainly He is, this is the clearest lesson in the book of Job. God is enough, where if you had no other blessings at all, you would still be blessed far beyond what your pride would convince you that you deserve.
I just listened to PPK's sermon from 6/24/09 (the oldest in the berean archive) One thing that PPK mentions is that we can not say to God that "you don't understand what I'm going through, you don't understand my suffering." But He does! First of all, He's God! Second, Christ came and suffered all things. We have a high priest who can sympathize, who has been tempted, betrayed, tortured, labored, abused, killed..... Whether you agree or disagree that we don't deserve anything, certainly, Christ did not deserve the trials of His life on Earth.
Anyway, my ultimate rebuke for myself that prompted this blog is that I am undeniably blessed. I have God! but even still He's blessed me so much! What room do I have to complain about the small things in light of the greater things. How can I be comfortable complaining about pay when I have a job! or complain about the cold morning when I live in Orange County! Thats a short list, haha, I definitely have much more that I complain about, verbally but probably more often in my heart. If you are a Christian, theres nothing to complain about, not even just in your heart, because (like last time) you have God, and He is enough (in addition to those blessings (in no particular order what so ever) like family, job, school, food, comfort, friends, church, girl friend, service opportunities, car, candy, bananas, video games, disneyland, pixar movies, my pastors, the internet, my cousins, my grandma, the beach, motorcycles, panda express, 50mph speed limits, the smell of vanilla or cinnamon or melon or sour apple or gf's perfume or hawaii or bacon, hawaii, ccm, r&b, christian rap, reliant k, guitars, bass, ruth's chris, retreats, taco tuesdays, middle earth, amazon.com, aim, google, cameras, my not so awesome point and shoot that I seriously love, hiking, switzer, ladder canyon, june lake, snowboarding, snow chains, husbands and wives, blackouts, counsel, many older brothers, rancho, facebook, blogger, old small groups, new small groups,...... goodness this could take a lifetime, I think I did this last time too.
Point being, there is so much to be thankful about to be discontent with the small things.
