Psalm 103:1-5 (NIV) 1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits- 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Where are you today in your awareness of the goodness of God and in your feelings of gratitude to God? Wherever you are today in your own feelings and experiences of gratitude, take a few moments to be with the Psalmist. The Psalmist had experienced the goodness of God in different ways, but it added up to one thing: the steadfast love of God.
Life gives us experiences of the steadfast love of God. But those experiences come and go. When we look to Jesus we see the steadiness of that steadfast love. Jesus came to destroy the dullness of our minds and hearts to the crazy extravagancies of God’s love. And Jesus is persistent. He was, and still is, persistent in offering God’s love to us, despite the blindness and bumbling of His disciples, despite the indifference of the crowd, despite the hostility of the leaders and despite the power of death itself. Jesus brings us good news that God is good, and God’s heart is set on us, in all our pain and possibilities, in all our vulnerability and vitality, in our dullness and in our devotion.
When we are dulled to God’s extravagance, it is a forgetfulness of spirit. Do we know that forgetfulness which captures our soul and dulls our spirit? Forget not. Maybe it is hard for us to hear reminders. Maybe there is something else we need to do to ready our souls to receive the bliss of gratitude.
And that something is forgiveness. Forgiveness for our forgetfulness, for letting the dullness slowly grow around our soul, forgiveness for letting the responsibilities of life and the demands of life push us away from God. And then we remember to say thank you, God, for your presence in my life, for meeting my needs despite my trying to be in control all the time. Jesus offers us God’s forgiveness that has the power to enter our soul.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope November 21, 1999
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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