All the Favorite Things

This is Chris Hughes with the Christian Perspective Podcast with Chris Hughes, where we encourage our listeners to engage the culture with Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds, so enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to Encouraging Prayer. And James, are you sure you want me to read this, you know, as we get started today?

Yes, Robbie, please do. Okay. I'm not sure why that is exactly, but here goes. So raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm wooden mittens. I think those are woolen.

Bright paper packages tied up with strings. These are a few of my favorite things. Excellent. Excellent.

I'm almost imagining you wearing lederhosen from The Sound of Peace. Keep going. Dream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles. Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. Wow.

These are a few of my favorite things. That's the spirit. Okay. Okay. You can stop now. But I was just getting to the part where the dog bites and the bee stings. We'll skip that part, Robbie, but the point is... Yes, please do get to the point.

Here it is. We need to pray about our favorite things and the little things in life. Just thank God for the little things. Seriously, it is a good point, because when we pray about things like that, right, it can help us be more thankful. Yeah, it's a great way to spend time with God and to help you think about the things that you're really thankful for.

One of the things I like about praying like this is it can help you think about the kindnesses God shows us every day. Do you ever have one of those days where it just seems like everything is going against you? Yeah, I had a day like that.

I think it was yesterday. It seemed like I got a ticket. I got a ticket, the Christian car guy, a parking ticket.

How could this happen to me? But it does happen, yeah. Oh no, yeah, me too. I mean, not that I got a ticket, but yesterday I was all excited trying to start a new beehive, and even though there was like a 20% chance of rain, you know what that means? It means that it will rain within 20% of a particular area. So guess where it was raining, you know?

I mean, sitting there, I mean, 20%, this is wrong! And I found myself just getting frustrated and even fussing at God about it, and you know, I just found myself going over the top, and later I thought, why am I doing this? And I apologized, and I asked for forgiveness, and I really, I felt badly about it, and I still do, but it showed me something about my heart, and that is how easily I can get troubled when my schedule gets messed up. And this is where, you know, if you had told me about the verse that says, Rejoice, always pray, continually give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus, I probably would have wanted to smack you, but you would have been right. So I guess this is the part where the bee stings.

Yeah, yeah. So I do really, I really, I do, I appreciate how this helps us think about really how God, God, how good God is in the smallest things, and honestly, it really can help me enjoy my life more. Yeah, this helps us probably think the right way about God, because let's face it, we live in a broken world, and sin and the devil, you know, twist our lives. And when we think about things like the warm spring sun as it falls on our faces, or a gentle breeze, or raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, you know, I mean, honestly, these things that God has made and graciously puts into our lives every day, what a difference it can make for us. So when we get in the habit of praying like this, when things don't go as they should, right, we're still thinking of all the things we really do have to be thankful for.

Yeah, like you were saying, you know, when the dog bites and the bee stings, you know, when you can't set up the hive because it's raining, that's exactly it. The difference this makes for our attitudes can be huge, because if we keep learning how to do this, then it changes our hearts over time, and I think we need to ask God to help us do this, and just to savor, you know, the smallest things, the colors that we see, you know, it helps us live life more intentionally with him, and I think it's beautiful. I was just thinking about this week, I had a chance to go fishing at a friend's house, it was unbelievable, and I thought, you know, how fun if I just bring Jesus along with me, like, where do you think we ought to cast Jesus, and he put me in the right spot, so like, I caught this huge bass, and then as we were, I was bringing it in, like, I was just, you know, I was thinking, how much more fun was this by having him be part of the experience than if I'd just done it on my own? Yeah, yeah, and just, I mean, think about the difference this could make for something like a cup of coffee, and again, these are little things, and a person might say, well, that's trivial, but it's not trivial at all. Not when you get down to the major moments of life, because you have this aggregate total of all of these things that you are blessed with every day, and don't we miss them? I mean, so often we miss them. It's like, you know, Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town. Do mortals ever realize life?

Well, they're living at every moment, you know, the character Emily says when she looks back on her life. You know, the more we do this, the more we see how really blessed we are. Yeah, for me, the thing that just brings us so home was that for two years, I was in a wheelchair, I don't know if you knew that, and yeah, when I got crushed behind the Jeep right after my cancer. So when I was in that wheelchair, I appreciated like, you would not believe how wonderful it was to be able to walk and to play with my kid like I just wanted to play basketball with my son so badly. And I wanted to go take part in all these things. And then when when the Lord gave me my legs back, like, oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah, you can really appreciate something, you know, when you hadn't had it, and then you realize, wow, life is full of so many little things that just taking a breath, or opening your eyes and being able to see the colors.

They're all huge and in the world where if you don't have something like that. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's just as we wrap up today, let's pray about this, that God will open our eyes, you know, help us to see in every way that he wants us to, just how good he is. Let's do that. Please, Lord, please help us. We need you so much.

And we, you know, we so often get, get our own agendas with life. And we know you'd have us live for you and live with you. And I just praise you. I thank you for all the good things that you poured into every single one of us. And I thank you for all the good things that you have poured into everyday life.

Help us to celebrate them. And so learn to love you more for all that you are, for all that you do in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. This is the Truth Network.