Psalm 103:2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
Counting our blessings is an intentional thing. We must be deliberate about it because it won’t come naturally. Based on my economics class in high school, I got to know that humans are never satisfied because we have unlimited wants but the resources we need to have what we want are limited. As a result, when we attain one thing, you would think that should be the end of our problems but no. We want something else after getting what we needed previously. So if we keep moving from one need met to the other, it is very likely to forget what God did before our current need.
Throughout the Bible, there are many instances where we are told to remember certain things. Humans are very liable to forget in both good times and bad times. In the scriptures, we are told to remember our creator in our youth because that’s the best time of our lives and in that time, we can easily live anyhow. We are also admonished to remember God because He gives us the power to make wealth. So when you have more than enough to meet your needs, you can also forget. It’s the same for difficult times too. Forgetting what God did in the past for us can throw us off course when we face challenges.
In the opening scripture, we see two statements; 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul 2. Forget not all his benefits. These two statements are joined with the conjunction ‘AND’. It means they must go hand in hand. If they used ‘OR’ it would mean either of them works. This, therefore, is what the verse means; Until you forget not(remember), you would struggle to bless the Lord. In other words, the rate at which we testify of the Lord’s goodness and show Him gratitude is a reflection of our ability to remember His acts of goodness towards us.
2 Peter 1:9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. The moment you forget, you are shortsighted. Shortsightedness is the inability to see far or beyond a certain point. If you currently desire a job, for instance, because you are only focused on that, you can’t see beyond that to notice the other things God has done or is doing in your life. That’s an example of a time we can be shortsighted. We can be so engulfed in our current situation or need that we fail to acknowledge what we do have. To count our blessings we must literally begin to do some thinking. Until you think, you’d never see anything to thank God for.
About two years ago on one night, I was trying to sleep but I couldn’t. After almost an hour of trying to sleep, I just decided to pray but for some reason, I began to think about my life so far – From the time in my childhood, I could remember till that point. The first thing I remembered was when I was knocked down by a car at age 4. As I moved past thinking about that to other occurrences of my life and how God came through, tears began to flow. I spent almost 2 hours not praying but reminiscing on God’s goodness, crying, and thanking Him. That couldn’t have happened without me deliberately thinking about it. The reason why we mostly struggle to thank God is that we have forgotten. There is so much God has actually done and we can only realize it when we take time to remember.
Psalm 77:11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. Psalm 40:5 Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. 2 Chronicles 16:12 Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.
Remembrance is the key to staying grateful. The way to sustain blessing the Lord is forgetting not His benefits.
The Word In Clarity 