Skip to main content

The Gift of a Cheerful Heart

Then thousand thousand precious gifts my daily thanks employ;

nor is the least a cheerful heart that tastes those gifts with joy. 

This is the fourth verse in a hymn titled When All Your Mercies, O My God, written by Joseph Addison in 1712. If you'd like to sing the verse, it's written in common meter, which just means you can use the tune of Amazing Grace or O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing or a bunch of other common tunes to sing it. I've been singing through a hymn book in my private morning worship, and until a couple days ago I had never heard of this hymn. 

The verse above is a beautiful thought, isn't it? Not only does God give us thousand thousand gifts, one of His kindest gifts is a cheerful heart that can enjoy them. Food, work, home, friends, family, all of them are good gifts, and another very good gift is the ability to enjoy them with a cheerful heart. 

So this too is another reason to give thanks. We can thank God for cinnamon buns and ice cream, music and laughter, friends and family, and we can thank God that our hearts can enjoy them. We are made in the image of a God who delights, and this delighting God has showered us with good gifts, let us be thankful and enjoy them with a cheerful heart. 

What I'm Reading 

    • A History of Britain in 21 Women by Jenni Murray. This was on my reading list last summer but I'm just getting to it now.
    • I finished The Second Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerine Jr. It was good. I liked the first one better. 
    • Beholding and Becoming by Ruth Cho Simons has become my new Sunday read. 
    • The Diary and Life of Andrew Bonar by Marjory Bonar is my before bed read.
    • Gentle and Lowly by Dan Ortlund is my audio book right now. The author reads it and does a fantastic job

What I'm Enjoying 

    • My patio couch 
    • Reading more books. I canceled my Amazon Prime membership for over the summer so I haven't been watching TV, which has forced me to read more books. 
    • Marc Scibilia's new album Mindy. 
    • Peonies from my sister-in-law 

To win souls and know God more, and then to be in the kingdom is 'all my desire.'  Andrew Bonar 1872

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back in Time

I pulled into the laneway of a home that I'm sure would have looked quaint if I could have seen it through all the trees. The sign by the road read "hanging baskets and railroad ties" and lo and behold that was just what I was looking for (I mean the railroad ties, not the hanging baskets).  I parked close to the grass incase a buggy had to get by and slipped out of the red mini van. I didn't see anyone. That, however, does not mean that someone did not see me. I strolled over to look at the flowers to wait for someone to come out and see what the crazy girl with the pony-tail was doing on their property. A large dog, missing his right eye, managed to find me first and it was while I was petting this friendly, half blind, beast that the house seemed to spit out a young lady. She was wearing a long dress, an apron, and a head covering. She walked toward me with a smile and I recognized her from a singing I had gone to at the neighbors place a few months earlier. I ...
2 comments
Read more

Hope in Sadness

 The Lord graciously made me with a happy disposition. My natural bent is joy. A couple years ago, however, something happened that shattered my heart. Due to the extreme emotional hurt, I was physically ill. I cried every day for weeks, then a couple times a week for months. For a long time I was sad. For years, the truest, deepest emotion I felt was sadness. When you live with sadness you get pretty good at carrying on. You live your normal life but where the world used to be full of colour, now your life is tinted by grief. If someone asked "how are you?" I could honestly say "good" because I was walking closely with God, but if someone had asked "how do you feel?" I would have had to reply "sad."  Psalm 66 became the theme of my emotional experience. "You brought us through fire and through water, you laid a crushing burden on our backs."  That's how I felt.  All the time.  Surrounded by fire and water, often burdened beyond wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gifts; A Joyful Face

I sat at the booth and checked my phone to make sure my friend knew where to find me. She had just parked and was walking over. Perfect. I ordered a cup of tea and was contentedly sipping on it when she entered. Seeing me immediately, she made a beeline for our table, took her seat, and looked up.  Her face was filled with joy as she asked how I was.  "I'm good," I said, slightly amused. "Why are you so happy?" "Oh," she shrugged. "I just am."  "I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices." ~Psalm 16:8-9a "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of a man reflects the man." ~Proverbs 27:19 Amidst all the sorrow and anger and fighting of our broken world this woman's face stood out. The joy in her eyes reflected the joy of her heart; a heart that had spent time with Jesus.  Throug...
Post a Comment
Read more