On Grumbling and Thanksgiving

The other day in my One-year Bible I read Psalm 111: "How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in Him should ponder them. Everything He does reveals His glory and majesty."

I am commanded then to ponder His amazing deeds! Reflecting on this past year, it is not difficult to see how the Lord has blessed us over and over. Those blessings reveal His glory and majesty. Yet I constantly fall into the peril of grumbling, offending God by my grievous sin. At its heart, grumbling dishonors God. It truly is a terrible offense, named among sins such as idolatry and immorality. Last Sunday Bruce Ware, an elder at our church, preached on I Corinthians 10, which speaks of the Israelite's grumbling. After all He has done. . . how dare we grumble? Dr. Ware exhorted us to cultivate the practice of reflecting on God's provision by developing in our lives a conscious, deliberate effort to bring to mind what God has done.

Here are some things that I am pondering:

• My dad's health -- praise the Lord for the safety of his heart!
  
• The growth I see in my life, Josh's life and each member of our families' lives. God is so gracious to give us more of Himself.
• The amazing way God opened the door for me to work with the children at Clifton, a deep desire of my heart!
• Financial generosity of friends and family who have helped us obey the Lord this year at Seminary and live within our means.
• A new nephew -- Max Garrett -- and another little niece on the way!
• New friends here at school and at church. We could not have dreamed how many precious like-minded friends we would find, and whose hospitality we would enjoy.
• Incredible encouragement from God's people at just the right time. Yesterday I was repenting of my grumbling spirit and not 20 minutes later Mrs. Ware came into the store, and encouraged me with all that she is. Not long after that, a precious family of little girls that I love at church came in and spent the next couple of hours there! I enjoyed talking to them about school and books and all sorts of things and before they left, the oldest little girl, Katie, slid a little card on my computer that had the sweetest message in it along with a gift card to Starbucks! I wanted to cry.
  

My challenge to you, my dear friends and readers, is to delight in the Lord, and ponder His great works. By doing so, may you overcome the sin of grumbling!