Things to more than remember

"Every time you experience something good and instead of being deeply grateful you take it for granted as if you deserve it, you are putting a mark on your soul... you are on the way to self-pity and resentment."
Tim Keller

i will extol the Lord at all times.

"There is a danger to you, a dimension to complex for the finite mind, an ocean to deep to be explored. This danger is your allowance for my grief and suffering. It is a crushing that breaks the bones of my faith and I'm cast down. And here there is a choice to make - to bless you or to curse you. To curse you would be to deny that there is any good in you at all. To believe that you have abandoned me in this violent human experience, and that you will never come back to claim me. To hate you for leaving me here, helpless and alone. But to bless you is to believe that, though you are not safe, you are good, completely good. And to bless you is to live surrendered to that which I don't understand about you. To walk, not run, and to trust. To open all my senses to you God. And to let wonder and awe heal all my wounds and restore my hope. And then to join the Psalmist, who said, "I will extol the Lord at all times, and his praise will be upon my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord, so let the afflicted rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together."
~Jon Shirley
Ps. 34 king David

how to enjoy things you don't have.

I was thinking today about things i don't have, not too many, but things I think i need. It doesn't matter a whole lot because, regardless of how i feel, I don't have them. It occurred to me, I can fret and try to find a way to get those things, and soon enough they will be critical, bare necessity things, or I change my feelings. I can enjoy that I don't have them. That sounds absurd. How do you then enjoy "them"? Do you switch gears and enjoy things you have? ...not exactly. It is important to be grateful for things we have, but I think what I'm talking about is disassociating "enjoyment" from things. That's difficult, but if you can say, "Well, today I don't have what I want. Oh well," then maybe you can detach yourself and find satisfaction in something else. Maybe you can "enjoy what you don't have." I recognize this is a bit abstract, but take for example me. I don't have a job. Soon I will need a job. If I don't have income, I can't enjoy Whole Foods. It must be noted that I derive enormous amounts of satisfaction from food, good whole foods. It almost bereaves me thinking I can't go get something as simple as sweet potatoes and spinach to cook a delectable meal. I need to find a job...but today, right now, everything is fine. I'm eating spinach pasta at this moment. So, "how" do I maintain perspective right now? I enjoy that fact that I don't have a job with something I do have. Writing. Later I will enjoy driving the Mercedes that's sitting in the driveway, as I go and look for work...to pay for other things.

Not until we do have absolutely nothing will we inextricably sense that living is not about things. Think Corrie Ten Boom. It is about why we are living, and you can find that in Colossians. ...And the Who? is also called Love.