Thank you Lord, for small favors

You know, one of the areas in which we as Christians sometimes fall a little short is in the recognition of and the acknowledgment of some of the blessings of God.  I’m referring to those that we, perhaps unintentionally, classify as “small” blessings.  It’s these that we just seem to take for granted as we live our lives.

My father used to include these words in many of his prayers and I recall them to this day.  He’d say “Thank you Lord, for small favors.”  I just wonder if we really recognize the “small favors” bestowed on us continually.

Oh, we have no trouble recognizing the big ones.  Blessings such as safe journeys, illnesses and medical problems overcome and things that weigh heavy on our hearts at times.  But, maybe we just don’t pay that much attention to those “small” blessings.  Those “small favors.”

I think that sometimes it takes one of these “small” things to magnify or enlarge into a “big” thing before we recognize it.  For instance, do we think much about the air we have to breathe?  Or, is it one of those blessings that we take for granted until all of a sudden we can’t breathe or we’re having trouble doing so?  I just think that many times it takes a major event to make us aware of the “small” favors we have in our lives.

I had a recent event occur in my life that caused me to start thinking about this subject of recognizing the “small” blessings in our lives.  And, if any of you have ever undergone a medical procedure wherein they “put you out” you’ll easily understand the “small favor” I’m going to mention.  If you guessed “ice chips” you’d be correct.

When you come out of the anesthesia one of the first things you become aware of is that your mouth feels like you ate your pillow along with a bucket of sand.  And, they won’t give you anything to drink but, they will give you a few ice chips placed just inside your lips.  Thank you Lord, for providing man with water whereby it can be frozen and thus we can have ice chips.  Those tiny little objects take on monumental proportions at the appropriate times.

I read a little story the other day that I feel can also help us to see my point here about recognizing blessings that we overlook much of the time.  Let me relate it to you and then we’ll discuss some spiritual applications to it.

A college professor tells his class that he’s going to give them a test.  He places a blank sheet of white paper on each student’s desk, face down.  He tells them to turn the paper over and to write down all their thoughts about what they see on the paper.

When they turned their papers over, all that was on it was a black dot in the center of the page.  After the allotted time for the test expired, the professor collected all of their papers and read each of them aloud to the class.  All of them described the “dot” in great detail.  They ascribed several meanings to it, such as: that it related to bad events that happen in life, sort of like “back clouds.”

There were different styles of writing, but the one thing consistent in their thoughts was that the “black dot” somehow related to something “not good.”  Not one student wrote that it had any other kind of meaning.

The professor then noted to the class that no one had paid any attention, nor had said anything about all of the white space surrounding the “dot.”  His point to the class was this: that we tend to focus on the bad things, the bad events, in our lives and to overlook the vast amount of good things.

It’s my humble opinion that he is absolutely correct in his point.  As it applies to our lesson today, I see it as an exercise wherein everyone saw the thing that they recognized as a “big” thing and did not recognize all of the “small” things surrounding it.

I’m just afraid that we fail to recognize these ongoing, continual blessings that surround us on a daily basis.  And, that by doing so, we fail to be appreciative to The One that provides them for us.  That we fail to “Thank God for small favors.”

One of those “small favors” is something that we many times groan and moan about, and perhaps, don’t recognize it as a blessing.  I’m speaking of something said by Solomon in Eccl. 3:13 where he tells us that our “labor” and all of its rewards are “the gift of God.”  That we don’t realize this as a blessing.  If we need to be reminded that it is, just ask someone out of work and looking for a job.

Or, maybe we see it in the way that Thomas Edison once said that “many people do not recognize opportunity because it wears overalls and looks like work.”  Do we sometimes not recognize an opportunity to teach someone, to help someone, to encourage others, because it looks like work?  I hope that we never reach that stage in our Christian lives.

Of course, we must always recognize the greatest blessing and gift of all time.  As we’re told in Acts 2:38, by obeying the gospel of Christ in being baptized, we receive the “gift of the Holy Spirit.”  And the further reward received by our obedience is “the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”  (Rom. 6:23)   That my friends, is not a “small favor.”

Respectfully submitted,

Ron Covey