Psalm 124 – If the Lord had not been on our side—let Israel say—2 if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us, 3 they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us; 4 the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, 5 the raging waters would have swept us away. 6 Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. 7 We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
We “count our blessings,” we all have much to thank God for. We thank God for our salvation and for being exactly who He is. We thank Him for being loving and trustworthy and all that entails. We thank God for having health, a spouse, children, extended family, house, job, transportation, etc. The blessings that God gives us are endless and therefore our reasons to thank Him are endless. What about a cool drink on hot day, or a hot drink on a cold day?
This Psalm reminds us to thank God for all the bad that did not happen, but could have. Maybe we just missed getting hit by a speeding truck. Or a tornado ripped up our neighborhood, but missed our house. Getting more personal, what about if a spouse, or a child did not wake up. Or if they had been kidnapped and harmed. What if a speeding truck did not miss them? What if we, like Job, in one day lost all physical blessings? Family, there are endless things that could have happened yesterday that would have wounded our hearts, would have altered our lives, but did not. Most of us can think of something that we hope never happens, maybe many things. Do we ever thank God for His protection against those things? Do we ever thank God for what did not happen? They may be obvious, or not. It is easy to thank the Lord for the return home of loved one during a bad storm, or if we saw on the News that a nasty multi-car accident had occurred where our loved one was traveling, but they were not involved in the accident. We thank God for the bad that didn’t happen. In the midst of tragedy, perhaps losing a loved one, we can thank God that we did not lost all our loved ones. We can also thank God that He said no to certain prayers that we later find out would have been very harmful to us. Let us think, for a moment, of all the things that go wrong if we had a “Job scenario” happen to us. What are the many blessings that could be lost? Scary, huh? In that case we know the Lord will sustain us if it is His will for us to continue living on this earth, but oh, if all the blessings were stripped away? Well, no one wants that.
Family, the Lord protects us from evil every day. Endless are the reasons to thank Him. The Lord included in His model prayer “…but deliver us from the evil one” Matthew 6:19b. Let us, as David did, consider the great loss, peril and evil that the Lord protects us from. Every breath we take is not something we have to think about. It is something that the Lord made our bodies to automatically do. We don’t have to think, every successive moment “Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in…” If we did, how could we sleep? No we don’t have to think about breathing. Neither do we have to continuously worry about the Lord protecting us, He just does. That just is who He is. Praise the Lord! We ask for His protection throughout the day and in the asking, we remain grateful. We thank God for His protection throughout the day. We trust Him to bless us with life and its many blessings. We ought to consider all the things that are easy to take for granted and thank God. Amen, thank you Lord! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.