So Many Reasons to Love the Lord

Helen Steiner Rice has so many great poems and I have so many books containing her poetry that very often I like to share one of them on my blog. This one really spoke to my heart today so it is the one I'm sharing. It's called "So Many Reasons to Love the Lord." I hope it speaks to your heart as it does to mine.

Thank You, God, for little things

that come unexpectedly

To brighten up a dreary day

that dawned so dismally―

Thank You, God, for sending

a happy thought my way

to blot out my depression

on a disappointing day―

Thank You, God, for brushing

the dark clouds from my mind

And leaving only sunshine

and joy of heart behind.

Oh, God, the list is endless

of things to thank You for

But I take them all for granted 

and unconsciously ignore

that everything I think or do,

each movement that I make,

each measured rhythmic heartbeat

each breath of life I take

Is something you have given me

for which there is no way

for me in all my smallness

to in any way repay.

           - Helen Steiner Rice

I'm sharing on Spiritual Sundays. I hope you will want to do that too.

Light of the World

Light of the world you stepped down into darkness 

Opened my eyes let me see 

Beauty that makes this heart adore You 

Hope of a life spent with You 

These are the opening lines of a song I always enjoy singing. Jesus said He was the light of the world. We are also to be lights in our dark world. How can we be lights in our dark world if our government or any government is determined to take God out of the world. Oh, they think it's OK to talk about God, but only in churches. Any mention of God might offend someone if it is uttered in our schools, or anywhere else except church. I just hate the way the left has changed the concept of freedom of religion to freedom from religion. The founding fathers intended for us to have freedom to practice our religion without government interference. 

I thought it was so sad when the Democratic National Convention left all mention of God out of their platform. This is the first year this has happened. There was such a backlash about this that they decided they had better put it back in along with the acknowledgement that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. So, they had a vote on it. The no's were as loud or louder than the yes's when they took the vote. So, the guy in charge says "Let's try this again." He tried it three times and evidently decided it wasn't going to change. The no's were still as loud or louder than the yes's so he declared it "passed" in spite of the opposition. It was supposed to be passed on a 2/3 majority vote which obviously was not the case. 

I have a hard time understanding why the left is so concerned about offending a few atheists but are willing to offend millions of Christians. We need to pray that this trend will be reversed and that once again God is welcome in our schools and everywhere else in society. Let's not try to keep Him locked up in our churches. Of course that is preposterous to think we can do that anyway. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. 

I hope we will all try to shine our light every day. Many are doing just that by sharing their faith and inspiration by linking to the Spiritual Sundays blog. I hope you go there and visit as many links as you can and you may also want to link a post on your blog, if you have a blog. Just click HERE to go there.

P.S. After I posted this, I realized that it is precisely because of the problems I stated above that we can be lights in this world. The darker it gets, the more light "shows up". Did you ever turn the lights on in your house in the daytime and hardly tell the difference, but if you turn them on at night, they shine brightly. As our world gets darker, let's let our lights shine more brightly.