Look for your blessings and then count them!

Happy Monday!

Here in the town that I live in, it's a beautiful sunny morning.  There are wonderous things happening all around me in nature, and I appreciate every sight, smell, and sound.  If you can see the glory in watching the trees sway slowly in the wind when there is no breeze in the air, you are watching a blessing from God. The person jogging down your street each morning, listening to their i-pod and glistening sweat is a blessing from God.

Most of the time we look for God's blessings to be of a material or financial kind.  We are so busy working hard to get the latest "thing" that we don't even take the time to be thankful for having the opportunity to work for it....that is the real blessing from God.  Being able to share something wonderful with another human being, whether it be financial, spiritual, emotional, or otherwise- the blessing is in the sharing. 

We also expect God's blessings to just fall in our laps sometimes.  The chances of this happening ALL the time are slim to none.  Now let's look at this from a different perspective.  Say that you DID want to be blessed with a car, and if fell into your lap--chances are you wouldn't be able to drive it right away....the blessing would then become sort of a curse, even if it is only temporary because somehow later, you regained the use of your legs.  Is it not much better to GO and SEARCH for the car you want, and once you find it, you can do what you need to do to obtain it, and drive it away?  I like this idea much better too....

So my message today is to consider, putting in work, and searching for your blessings instead of waiting on them to come to you.  Blessings are all around us, floating right by us-  we just have to seek the ones we need and put in work to get them.  There is reward in the search afterall too.  The appreciation for the thing you yearn for is much more prevalent when you go out in search of it- the work helps you to develop a deeper connection to it...and to God, who helped to see you through the work...the blessing becomes much sweeter!