We have these little power blips where I live. Usually the electricity isn’t off long enough to qualify as a proper outage. It just goes off long enough to make everything in the house lose its mind.
The lights blink, the internet has to reconnect, something somewhere starts beeping, and then there are the clocks. Oh, the clocks. Every clock in the house feels compelled to announce the interruption by blinking at me until somebody resets it. Being in a wheelchair, most of them are beyond my reach, so I have to wait until my son gets home from work and can restore order to my little corner of the universe. Thirty minutes might not seem like long to wait, and it really isn’t—unless you are staring at 12:00… 12:00… 12:00… 12:00… Then thirty minutes can feel more like six weeks.
But our house has one more little surprise waiting after a power blip. We have these fancy-schmancy bathroom mirrors with built-in bright lights and defoggers. Apparently their factory setting after losing power is not something reasonable like OFF. Oh no. When the electricity comes back, every bathroom mirror comes on in full-blaring-light mode. So now the clocks are blinking, the internet is rebooting, the television is buffering, and the bathrooms look like someone is conducting interrogations in there.
Somewhere in the middle of all that aggravation, however, I can completely overlook the most obvious thing: the power came back on. In fact, nearly everything irritating me at that moment is evidence that I have electricity again.
And that thought made me wonder how often I do the same thing with God.
I can be surrounded by His goodness and still have my attention captured by the one blinking, glaring, inconvenient thing that isn’t quite right. I notice what needs fixing before I notice everything God has already provided.
David wrote, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2).
Those two words—“forget not”—say more than I first realized. One of the easiest ways to forget God’s benefits isn’t to deliberately become ungrateful. It’s to simply become accustomed to His goodness. The blessings that once amazed us become ordinary, while the one thing that isn’t quite right flashes brightly enough to command all our attention.
That is why Scripture speaks about thanksgiving so often. A thankful heart doesn’t happen simply because we have been given enough good things. We have already been given more than we could ever count. Thankfulness has to be cultivated by deliberately remembering where those good things came from.
The psalmist wrote, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High: To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night” (Psalm 92:1–2). I love the rhythm of that. Morning and night. Begin the day noticing His lovingkindness and end it remembering His faithfulness. That sounds a lot like training the heart not to forget.
Paul takes it even further: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Notice that he doesn’t say for everything. There are painful things in this life that we don’t have to pretend are good. But even in them, there is still a faithful God to thank. Gratitude doesn’t deny the blinking clocks. It simply refuses to let them become the only thing we can see.
That same principle appears in Philippians when Paul tells us, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). Even while I am telling God what is troubling me, He invites me to remember what He has already done. I can bring Him the problem and the thanksgiving in the same prayer.
That is how a thankful heart is trained—not through one great burst of gratitude, but through hundreds of small acts of remembering. Thank You, Lord, for another morning. Thank You for the people I love. Thank You for food on the table. Thank You for mercy that was waiting for me when I woke up today. Thank You for Your Word, for another Sabbath, for forgiveness, for grace, and above everything else, for Jesus.
There will always be something blinking. Something unfinished. Something we wish were different. Something demanding our attention. But there will also always be evidence of God’s goodness if we train our hearts to look for it.
And the more we remember, the more we begin to understand David’s words: “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Psalm 107:1).
Sometimes I need to stop staring at the blinking clock—and squinting at the bathroom mirror—long enough to remember that the power is back on.
And then thank God for the light.
If this Fireside Chat warmed your spirit and sparked fresh resolve to live what you believe, fan that flame with Scripture—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Pull a little closer to the Light, and carry it into the week ahead.
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