“Give us this day our daily bread”

Matthew 6:11

Every minute of every day we are showered with blessings from a loving God who cares for our every need. The short familiar phrase from The Lord’s Prayer refers not only to food, but for all those things which we require to live in this world. How do we identify a blessing from God? By cultivating the habit of looking for them.

I remember, as a boy, walking with my dad on a summer evening to the nearby baseball diamond at the local elementary school, a couple blocks from our home. He had bought me my first baseball glove, and instructed me to stand halfway between second and third base, slightly hunched over, waiting to shag the balls he hit my way from his batting position near home plate. Some of them were grounders that I had to move left or right to catch, others were line drives that hurt when they hit my glove.

Still others flew over my head, and I had to turn around and run to catch them.

So it is with blessings. I must be ‘in the moment’ at all times, looking for and expecting those wonderful gifts from God. Just now I received another one: a Hairy Woodpecker landed on my suet feeder. A moment ago, my dog Darby just touched my hand with her cold nose. Practice identifying blessings, and your soul will be full of wonder and thanksgiving at God’s providence!

Prayer: “There shall be showers of blessing.” Alert my senses, Lord, to awareness of them; every hour, every day. And may my heart and mind sing your praises as I run out of ways to count them. Amen.