EXPECT BLESSINGS

I am a great believer in blessings.

My signature on my text messages reads, “Expect Blessings,” and I do. I expect them. I look out for them. I lean on them, because those signs, both large and small, represent God’s acknowledgement to me. It keeps me sane. It enables me to keep on keeping on. It is a voice saying, “Don’t fear. You are not alone. I know that you sometimes feel unable to do the things that are expected of you, and sometimes you are (unable). But I’m not. Nothing is beyond my powers to make happen. So relax and trust.”

Some people don’t expect blessings. They don’t look for them and, oftentimes, they are unhappy; sometimes profoundly so.

Expecting and keeping a spiritual eye out for blessings is not a talent that you are necessarily born with. In my experience, it is something you have to work at.

It requires taking stock of your life, past and present, and identifying your blessings. Reflect on the times when all seemed lost but you made it through the storm. Think of the many problems that you could have, that many people live with, but that you have been spared.

Most folks spend an inordinate amount of time doing just the opposite. They are constantly looking at what is wrong, while virtually ignoring everything that is right.

I remember, years ago, when I was in the Army, I knew a guy who I called Angry Man. Angry Man was almost always, if not angry, at least irritated about something. He seemed to always be complaining about things that were happening or things that he expected to happen. Whenever things didn’t go his way he was whining about the sheer injustice of it all. It was a bit irritating and I did my best to steer clear of him whenever possible.

Unfortunately, we were about the same age, which was older than the average soldier at our rank, so he seemed to value me as a kind of special friend. Anyway, one find day I was relaxing in my room in the barracks, door open and music playing as many of us did on the weekend, when Angry Man found his way in. He was kind of intoxicated. Not completely blotto, but he had imbibed enough libation to make him even more loquacious than usual.

He started in on his usual rant about how “f’d-up” this was, and how this person pisses him off, how this didn’t go right, how everything sucked, and how unhappy he was. I had probably had a few brewskies myself, and was probably in less of a mood to be diplomatic than usual.

After listening to him bitch and moan for a few minutes, I said, “Did it ever occur to you that you are not happy because you spend all of your time thinking about how f’d up things are? Maybe if you change your focus you wouldn’t be so damn unhappy all of the time!”

You would think that I had uttered the most profound thing that he ever heard. I swear he had tears in his eyes. He thanked me profusely for the incredible wisdom that I’d just imparted unto him and headed back to his room to meditate on the world that I had just opened up for him.

Life not usually being like the movies, he didn’t show up for formation the next morning a completely changed person and I don’t know if he turned his life around after that day. But, I brought up that encounter to illustrate the simple truth that so many of us miss, including me. Because, even after that simple, salient truth has occurred to you, it is hard to break the old habit of looking at that glass and seeing something that is missing half of what you would like it to have instead of being halfway to where it could be and halfway past where it might unfortunately be.

I’ve heard it said that it is easier for most of us to look at what is wrong rather than what is right. Is it? That viewpoint certainly doesn’t make life easier. Sometimes, when my wife, Rachelle, and I have been through a very dark place and come out on the other side I remark that the journey could have been much easier had we just stopped worrying and trusted that everything was going to be alright.

It is also said that God doesn’t give us anymore than we can handle. A quick look at suicide statistics could refute that saying, but I would argue that sometimes people just give up. They decide that they can’t handle anymore. It isn’t that they couldn’t go on if they tried. They just make a decision to fold their cards and quit. It probably seems easiest at the time.

But you never know what tomorrow might bring. Expect Blessings.