Skip to main content

New Article: Seeing What You Have

 

               Richard Griffin, who for many years served as the Queen’s Personal Protection Officer, told this story about her.

               The Queen spent the summers in Scotland at Balmoral Castle where she enjoyed hiking in the nearby hills.   One day, she and Richard met a couple from America.  They exchanged greetings and the tourists began to talk about their trip and how much they were enjoying Scotland.  Eventually, one of them asked the Queen, “Where do you live?”  She replied, “In London.  However, I have a holiday home just over the hills”.  One of the tourists then said, “Well, if you come up here in the summer, you must have met the Queen”.  Elizabeth replied, “No I haven’t, but Richard meets her regularly”.

               Upon hearing that, the visitors asked him what she was like.  He responded, “Well, she can be very cantankerous at times, but she has a lovely sense of humour”.  The tourists were so excited to meet someone who knew the Queen that they asked if they could take his picture.  Then, Richard took the camera, and they got a shot with Elizabeth as well.  After they left, the Queen said, “I would love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photos to his friends, and someone tells him who I am”.

                 I am not unlike those tourists.  I often do not see what is right in front of me.  The challenge, always, is to recognize what you have.  For example, in Romans 15:13 Paul prays “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”.  Things would look different to me if I saw them through the lens of hope, joy, peace, trust, and the Spirit’s power.

               Philippians 2:1, states that “Christ encourages you, and his love comforts you. God's Spirit unites you, and you are concerned for others”.  We often look for encouragement, comfort, fellowship, care, peace, and joy in the wrong places when all those things and more are given to us by our heavenly father.

               It is easy to overlook what is right in front of us.  It is easy to see what we lack rather than what we have.

               May we have eyes to see the abundant blessings of God.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Art of Noticing.... Seeing what we need to see and what we miss when we don't

 What we focus on in life matters. Here are some scriptural reminders that will help us see correctly.  https://youtu.be/Rn76tV0ZH8s    
Post a Comment
Read more

Consider This: Twenty-three Descriptions of God (Psalm 145)

  Let’s play a quick game.  Take 10 seconds and list 5 or 6 words to describe God.  Got your words?  Good!   Here comes the game part.  I will list twenty-three ways that David describes God in Psalm 145, and we will see how many of his words match yours.   David says that God is, the king, great, majestic, wonderful, powerful, awesome, abundant in goodness, righteous, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, rich in love, good to all, glorious, mighty, trustworthy, faithful, supporting, generous, providing, near, saving and watching.     How did you do? This is not a useless exercise.  The words we use to describe God not only indicate something about how we see him, but they also influence how we interact with him.  For example, if I know that God is “Gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love” (verse 8), I will not fear him, and I will not assume that he is against me.  When I remember that...
Post a Comment
Read more

Consider This: What is so Great About Grace?

If you were to drive by our house, you would see that Sara loves plants.  Our yard is full of flowers, and Sara lovingly tends every one of them. Which is why I was so afraid when she left town and put me in charge of keeping things alive. She must have been a little concerned, too, because she sent me two videos with specific instructions on how to water, when to water, and what to do.  Honestly, those first two videos helped, but the third one she sent was the one I liked most.  In that one, she said, “Please do your best. I want the yard to look good for the family reunion in two weeks.  However, if something dies, we will dig it out and pretend that it never existed!” That is what grace looks like!  Try your best, do what you can, but if it goes wrong, it will be ok. Sometimes we talk as though grace and effort are opposites.  That is not true.  They are partners. In one place, scripture asks, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone c...
Post a Comment
Read more