Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, rwith thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Col 3:16.
This morning I’m on my way to Indianapolis for the Gospel Coalition conference. It’s a big deal for me since this is the first time I’ve gone to the big one for the whole movement (I’ve been to a couple of the Atlantic Canada regional conferences).
Coming from Newfoundland, the fact is that your flight is by far most likely to be in the early morning (I had to be at the airport by 4 AM). The crowds here at St. John’s Airport show that I’m not alone.
While I was checking in, I was able to use the check in kiosk with no problem, and when I said that to the agent at the baggae check in, she said that was a surprise, since the system had been off and on all day. I just happened to be “lucky”. Of course, I only knew that I was lucky because I had been notified of the problem, if I hadn’t been notified, I’d have blithely continued as if my good fortune was to be expected, even that it was my right.
How often is my life like that? I mean, I don’t have the stuff that others have, and it’s easy to come up with things that “I wish I had”, yet so often my life is marked by many many little blessings that I’m completely oblivious to, even as I am the direct beneficiary of them. It always seems easier to look at the negatives than at the positives, and to then create a world where I feel sorry for myself because of all the blessings I don’t have. My coveting the blessings I don’t have, actually re-imagines my reality to be far more negative than it actually is.
“You shall not covet uyour neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Ex 20:17.
What I call my world is not simply constructed of the experiences and circumstances i find myself in, but also of the perceptions of those experiences and circumstances. The sin of coveting then is not merely an action, but a colouring of my world… a corruption of my perceptions. A corruption that can only effectively be overcome by simple thankfulness.
Even for something as simple as the check in kiosk working for the few moments I needed it.
