This article concerns the same topic as my most recent YouTube video, which you can check out here:
https://youtu.be/By5wKTFJjIc
I love coffee. One of my favorite things to do is sit here in the morning, have my quiet time with God, and Drink coffee. As I have my quiet time with God, one thing that I often think about is just how blessed I am and how God is responsible for all of those blessings, right down to the smallest one. Take my coffee for example. Who would have ever thought that God would make a bean that you could roast, grind up, run hot water over it, and make something that is so enjoyable. And isn’t it amazing that He gave us such an intellect that someone would have ever thought to try doing that in the first place? I find that amazing. And that’s God.
I know that coffee is a very small thing and maybe you don’t even like coffee. But I’m sure that there are some small things that you do get a lot of enjoyment out of. And what about the not so small things? You have God to thank for every one of those things. James 1:17 says that every good thing we have comes from Him. We have a lot to be thankful for and most of us, if you ask us, would acknowledge that, with words anyway. But what if someone doesn’t ask us? Would they be able to tell, by our actions and attitudes, that we are thankful? This Thursday is Thanks Giving but being thankful isn’t something we should just set aside one day for. For Christians especially, being thankful should be a way of life.
We are all very blessed. However, as we go through our day to day life, we often run into situations that don’t seem like much of a blessing and it is really easy to get focused on those things. But if you really think about it, many of the bad things and many of the good things are really the same things. Often, it’s just a matter of prospective.
Let’s take my life as an example. Later, we will flip over the coin and look at the blessings but let’s start by focusing on the negative things, as that is what we so often gravitate to focusing on anyway.
First of all, I am completely blind, in both eyes. That isn’t particularly fun and the majority of the negative things in my life are connected to that, in some way. Let’s look at some of those things.
I can’t read print. If someone mentions a book that they just read, I can’t necessarily just go out and buy it. Many books are available in electronic formats that I can access but some are not and, in those cases, I’m just out of luck. It can be very frustrating to hear about what sounds like a really good book, only to find out that it isn’t available in a format that I can read.
I can’t use pen and paper. Today, people often use their electronic devices to take notes but what about when someone wants to give you a phone number or other information really quickly? Pen and paper can come in really handy in those cases and I can’t use them. What about forms that have to be filled out? Some are available electronically but many of them are still just on plane old paper and require a pen to fill out. I can’t do that, without help. These are relatively small things but can still be a bit frustrating at times.
I can’t see electronic screens. There are several consiquences connected to that but one of the hard ones involves my kids. Kids are really into video games these days, good or bad, that’s what they’re into. I try to be a big part of my kids lives. If my kids want me to check out the latest video game, I can’t. They can tell me about it but I can’t really experience it with them. That may seem like a small thing but that can be hard.
I have experienced a lot of employment discrimination. I have now found my calling and I’m no longer looking for employment but, in the past, I have found it really hard to find jobs, despite the fact that I have a lot of education and experience in the field that I used to work in. I have applied for many jobs that I could have done but the potential employer just couldn’t get past the whole blindness issue. That has been pretty hard to deal with. Among other things, it has caused some self esteem issues and has resulted in a lot of financial hardship.
I occasionally have seizures. My eye problems stem from the fact that I was born 3 months prematurely and very premature birth can also cause seizures. This doesn’t happen to everyone who is really premature but it did happen in my case. When I have a seizure, it is very disconcerting to wake up dizzy and disoriented, laying on the floor or a stretcher, with no memory of how I got that way. It often takes weeks to get back to feeling normal. As you might imagine, that is not fun at all.
If you are familiar with my ministry, then you know that a big part of that ministry involves speaking, both testifying and preaching. When I speak, because I am blind, my ability to access notes as I speak is limited and so I have to rely on my memory more than most speakers. The medicine that I take to control my seizures, at the dose that I take, can have a side effect of memory problems. What was I talking about again? Think about that. Standing up in front of a crowd, testifying or preaching and doing most of it from memory, knowing that my brain may fail to make a needed connection, causing me to draw a blank on a particular point or Scripture reference. At times, that can be somewhat anxiety inducing.
As I said earlier, I am completely blind, lacking even light perception. In some people, including me, this will cause a problem called “non 24”. In most people, their circadian rhythms are regulated through their visual perception of when it is light and when it is dark outside and this keeps them on a 24 hour circadian cycle. If you are one of the few people who completely lack light perception, this can cause your circadian rhythms to run on a cycle that is not exactly 24 hours, hence the term “non 24”. You have no idea how many things in your body are governed by your circadian rhythms until those rhythms are out of whack. For me, the main problem that has come from this is that I have experienced long cycles of insomnia for most of my life. For long periods, I have had to get used to working and parenting while half asleep.
If you have ever heard me give my testimony or read my book Blind Faith, you know that, a couple decades ago, I had a series of 10 major eye surgeries and complications that took me from very severely visually impaired to completely blind. Just about every major surgical procedure that you can have done on your eyes, I had done, sometimes multiple times. When that happens, your eyeballs don’t like that. For about the first 10 years or so, I was in constant pain, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, I’m down to having pain about maybe a third to half of the time. Physical pain has become basically normal to me. Because I have more or less gotten used to it, it isn’t as bad as you may think, but it’s still far from pleasant.
OK, that’s enough negativity. Now, let’s look at the flip side. What are the positive things about my situation, the things I have to be thankful for?
I am blind. There is no getting around the fact that I have gone through a lot of hardship because of that and being blind does make many things in my life much harder than they would otherwise be. However, despite all the negative things I have just talked about, there are also many positive things. I am truly very blessed.
I was born at a very good point in history to be blind. A lot of technology has been developed, in the last few decades, which can allow a blind person to do many things much easier than they could do before and which makes many things possible that simply would not have been possible before.
I said that I can’t read print and I can’t, visually, and that does sometimes cause me not to be able to read things that I would like to. However, many books are available in electronic formats that I can access. There are commercially available audiobooks and there are organizations that specialize in recording books and making those books available to the blind. There is also text to speech technology which allows a blind person to read E-books. If we go a little further back in the development timeline, there is also braille, though it isn’t as important as it once was, with the emergence of newer technologies. Some materials are not available in accessible formats. That’s just life. No one can get everything they want. But I am so blessed that so much is available. I love to read. A little over a century ago, no blind person could have made that claim. It’s awesom that I can.
I said that I can’t use pen and paper. However, there is technology which allows the contents of a computer screen or smart phone screen to be accessed using synthesized speech or braille. Using that technology, I can read and write text messages, E-mails, articles, and I have written 3 books so far. Some forms can be filled out this way as well. Many forms are not available electronically and there are still often times when pen and paper would be faster and more convenient than the electronic way of doing things. That’s just life. But there is so much I can do and I’m so thankful for that.
I said that I can’t see electronic screens and one down side to that is that My kids love to play video games and I can’t participate in that with them. Well, I actually can, just a little. My 7 year old, Nathan, so wants me to play his video games with him that he will give me a controller and spend a lot of time doing his best to talk me through a game that I have no hope of really playing. I love it that he loves me so much and so wants to spend time with me and share this experience with me that he will do that. My older kids did that when they were younger too. I think that’s pretty cool. That may be even cooler than the experience that you sighted parents have who can actually play the games. I am very blessed to have the kids that I have.
I have experienced a lot of employment discrimination. That was very difficult to deal with for a very long time. However, I’m not looking for a job any more. God has called me to this ministry and it is more than a job, it is who I am, and I am so thankful for it. Once I stopped running and surrendered to the call, God has really provided. Don’t get me wrong, it is still sometimes pretty hard, financially, but He has provided everything we need to cary out His work. Even before that, we didn’t go hungry. We have always had a roof over our head and food on the table. There were times when I didn’t know how that was going to continue but, in the end, God always provided.
I do occasionally have seizures. I don’t have them often but they tend to be big ones and they do have the potential to be life threatening. Although unlikely, it is possible that one of them may take me out one of these days. However, I am very blessed to be alive in the first place. I was born 3 months prematurely, in 1977, when being that premature was a much bigger deal than it is now. I was also a triplet, which lowered my birth weight even more than it would have been. Most babies born in those circumstances then didn’t survive. My brothers did not survive. Most babies who did survive had major problems, (pulmonary, circulatory, neurological), problems much bigger than being blind and having an occasional seizure. I am very blessed to be here and for all of my mental faculties to be in tact and, over all, to be in good health.
There are medicines that help to prevent the seizures and, while the meds are not 100% effective in my case, I am very thankful that these meds exist. As I said earlier, these meds also cause memory problems in some people, including me. However, the same screen reading technology that allows me to access the internet and write books also allows me to access notes when I speak, to help me when I do forget something. If that technology did not exist, it would be much harder for me to do what I do and I am very blessed that that technology does exist.
As I explained earlier, I am completely blind, lacking even light perception and in some people, including me, this will cause a circadian rhythm regulation problem called “non 24”. The effects of this have definitely not been fun and have even probably contributed to my seizures. However, it has been discovered that taking 1 milligram of melatonin at the same time every day can restore normal circadian rhythm regulation. This only works in about 50% of people who have non 24 and I am in that 50%. In the United States, unlike in other countries, melatonin is available over the counter and is extremely cheep. So, for me, non 24 problem solved.
I said that I had constant eye pain for years, as a result of my eye surgeries, and I still have pain much of the time. I won’t lie, that isn’t pleasant. However, I do have ibuprofen. That doesn’t take the pain away but it takes enough of the edge off it to make it more tolerable when it’s really bad. I could take prescription medicine to help more, if I wanted to, which I don’t, but it’s wonderful that all these meds are available.
So, you see, I have many negative things in my life. However, on the flip side of the coin, there are many positive things, blessings from God, which make the negative things much more bearable. In some ways, the negative things are blessings in their own way, because, were it not for the negative things, I would not have reason to experience God’s sustenance in the way that I do.
Although most of us are not blind and don’t have seizures, I am not unique in my basic situation. All of us have problems and many of us have some pretty big problems but all of us are also very blessed. Much of our attitude is a matter of perception and a matter of choice. We can choose to focus on the negative things or we can choose to focus on the blessings. God wants us to focus on the blessings and He will help us to do that, if we ask Him.
1 Thessalonians 5
16 Rejoice always,
17 pray without ceasing,
18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Paul tells us to pray without ceasing. I don’t think he meant for us to literally never, for one second, stop praying. The way I think of this is keeping the channel open. As we pray, it’s fine to ask Him for things. He wants us to do that. He makes that clear in His Word. But we also need to stop and thank Him for what He has already given us. I don’t mean a quick and shallow “thanks God”. I mean take the time to really reflect on just how blessed you are and thank Him for that. You would be amazed what He will do in your heart as a result.
Philippians 4
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
You see verse 7 quoted a lot, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. This is true but this is just part of it. Back up a verse and look at it in context. Verse 6 says “with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”. Let that first part sink in, “with thanksgiving”. Truly acknowledging what Christ has done for you in your every day life and, most importantly, at Calvary, is necessary if you are truly going to experience “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding”.
If you want to take a much deeper dive into that subject, read the article I wrote earlier, entitled “How to Obtain Peace”. I really would encourage you to think and pray about this, not just for your own sake but also for the sake of your witness. As Christians, we are supposed to be salt and light to the world. We want them to see what we have and want it too. If we are always complaining about how bad our jobs are and all the things we don’t have and how people don’t treat us right and whatever else, then why in the world would they want what we have? We can say that we are thankful all day long but if that isn’t really true in our hearts, that will show in our attitudes and in our actions. Our attitudes and actions always speak louder than our words. We have to remember, for those of us who profess His name, we represent Him, first and foremost.
So, I encourage you. Do whatever you have to do in order to get away from everything for a few minutes. Sit down, have a cup of coffee, and really look at all the things that God has given you, the big things and the small things. I mean really think about it. Sure, you have things in your life that aren’t so great but ask God to help you to see your cup not as half empty but as half full. I think you will find that, really, your cup is full to overflowing. Truly thank God for that. Rest in the peace that brings and let the world see that peace.
