10,000 Reasons

Bless the Lord, oh my soul, oh my soul, and worship His holy name. 
Sing like never before, oh my soul and worship His holy name!
...........................

Jess sat down in the hall in the middle of all our rooms and started asking about what she could pray for us for. Ray gave her answer, what seemed to be very quickly to me. Then she asked me. I was dreading it honestly. I'd been feeling a little mopey and really did not know what to say short of whining and complaining. So I just said I needed to work on my focus. That my focus this week would be so totally God-saturated. We moved on shortly after hearing her requests and continued on with the evening.

A  couple hours later Ray came in to my room and called Jess in and we spent some good time before the throne, lifting each other up. I went away from that time feeling much less mopey and much more at peace. Again, we moved on with what we were doing (going to bed for me!!)

I awoke the next morning and my devo was on looking to the things that are above. Focusing on heavenly things rather than the things that pass away.

The day after a 4 day holiday + typhoon day is not the most exciting morning to be waking up and going to work. But as I walked to the bus stop to get on my bus for work and did NOT get to listen to my worship music because my iPod was dead, I kept thinking about putting my mind on the heavenly things and how cool it was that this reminder came the day after I requested prayer for my focus.

Matt Redman's song 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) kept playing on replay in my head and the thought occurred to me, "Have you ever tried to find 10,000 literal reasons to bless the Lord?"

So I texted the girls and all morning long I was either sending a text with another reason to bless Him, or receiving one from them. What a focus adjuster! It put new meaning to the verse, "Let Your praise continually be on my mouth". I found my whole attitude much more joyful and peaceful. I even stopped in one of my classes and randomly had my kids think of ten things they were thankful for. (This is how I keep them on their toes- random assignments in class :P )

I find myself wanting to despair about the mundane, or worry about things out of my hands, but today I am reminded- there are 10,000 reasons out there just waiting to be discovered as to why I should be blessing - not cursing- the Lord this day. (really there are more than 10,000, but let's just use that number for now)

I challenge you, write down 10,000 reasons today- or see how far you get. I dare you. Do it. It will rock your world.

Thank you, Daddy for every reason you've given me today to bless Your holy name!!