The Soul Training exercise associated with the latest chapter of The Good and Beautiful God is to count your blessings. Smith asks you to try to come up with 10 things God has blessed you with and then see if you can keep going and come up with 100 blessings from God.
I decided to make it a part of my daily meditation and come up with 10 things for 10 straight days. I completed my list a few days ago and thought I would share it with you. Hopefully, this will inspire you to make your own list.
What has been most helpful about this exercise is how it has opened my eyes to a wide range of goodness around me. My default mentality is often to feel sorry for myself and dwell on what I am missing or still need to obtain. This exercise made me see that almost everything around me is a blessing and that God is incredibly generous and looking out for me.
One thing you will notice about my list is that it is full of mundane, maybe even somewhat silly things. I intentionally tried to not list my family members because those are obvious and would keep me from noticing blessings that I would often overlook.
So, as you make your own list, don’t feel the need to be super spiritual. Sometimes it is the smallest things that provide just the right amount of joy and whimsy that helps remind us of God’s goodness.
My list of 100 blessings from God:
- good night’s sleep
- UME Prep
- Texas Rangers
- blogging
- DBU
- books
- Dallas Willard
- Michael Roe
- Green Tea
- less pain
- teaching opportunity
- my church
- running
- podcasts
- yoga
- lighter temperatures
- recent days spent with my parents
- music
- common sense
- Texas
- good hugs
- my car
- Olympics
- education
- Tim
- friendship
- marriage
- good memory
- meditation
- morning
- my job
- our house
- Henry
- Abilene
- swimming pools
- my mind
- bananas and grapes
- basketball
- the trail
- camping
- Grace’s 17 years
- chocolate milk
- accomplishing work tasks
- good stories
- start of school
- healing
- beds
- mowing
- air conditioning
- learning
- being with my wife
- internet
- showers
- churches
- scripture
- forgiveness
- patience
- dancing
- medicine
- children
- parents
- date nights
- cool evenings
- God’s love
- breakfast
- Eric Nadel
- worship
- Ben
- Joey
- Aaron
- no teeth were pulled
- mashed potatoes
- answered prayer
- my students
- The Mother Hips
- Dad
- fatherhood
- Leah
- My mom
- opportunities for growth
- surviving the first two days
- information
- night sky
- nature
- my office
- dinner’s at home
- Dr. Kiker
- Anthony
- Chad
- travel
- Leah’s job
- good customer service
- generous gifts
- Adrian Beltre
- Audible
- Mrs. Roszak
- Dr. Barcelo
- insurance
- baseball
