Grocery Store | God Blog

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
- Marcus Tullius

Grocery Store

Psalms of Delight...

Most of the Bible's Psalms give thanks to God on one or more levels. Commanded to do so, Christians aught to make the time to praise God for His glorious nature, creative genius and many gifts to mankind.

Psalms of Delight are written in concert with Psalms in the Night. Both series contain Modern Psalms meant to comfort and inspire those seeking the Omni-God revealed in Scripture.

Grocery Store Summary

Can you imagine the length of the laundry list of modern convenience bestowed on this generation? Aught we not daily try? Doing so would soon reveal that even the majority of those living in today’s low income bracket enjoy a vast variety of previously unimaginable blessings. More than a few of which lining isle by isle of something as hum drum a supermarket.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

- Colossians 4:2 NIV

Grocery Store
Modern Psalm of Delight 5

Have things changed since You went in shopping in Galilee! Today's supermarkets would be a wonderland for someone from the 1st century. Or from any time prior to the last few years. Even right now on Earth billions have never seen their like.

How blessed are we to simply walk into these sparkling clean and air conditioned marvels and buy whatever we want when ever we want? Ladened with such food and drink, desserts and alcohol, medicine and stunning array of products and inventions from around the globe, even the wealthiest of every other age would be amazed at what we daily take for granted.

I'd fall prostrate and worship You in the middle of the frozen food isle if it wouldn't end in my detention for psychiatric evaluation.

One things certain. If variety's the spice of life what flavors ours are filled with. With the average grocery store offering 45,000 individual products in endless variety how thankful we should be. Particularly considering:

1,200,000,000 people live on $0.23 a day

2,000,000,000 people have no electricity

80% of people live in substandard housing

1,000,000,000 people are without safe drinking water

Every 16 seconds someone dies of hunger

Meanwhile...

$8,000,000,000.00 are spent on cosmetics in the U.S.

$11,000,000,000.00 are spent on ice cream in Europe

$17,000,000,000.00 are spent on pet food in the U.S. and Europe

$105,000,000,000.00 are spent on alcohol in Europe

All this in light of hundreds of Scriptures warning us of such behavior:

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." James 2:14-17

“'Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?' Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-39

"Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it's needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you." Hebrews 13:2-3

With billions in prisons and poverty, victims of war and circumstance You'd think we'd love our neighbor enough to be empathetic or at least love You enough to really be thankful. Forgive us for being neither. Thanks for Your goodness to a generation growing ever more entangled in the original sin of entitlement Forgive us for taking for granted Your innumerable blessings on First World Nations the answer to the prayers of all generations.

Are we no in many ways as responsible for inheriting such wealth as the Rich Young Ruler? Yet unlike him, we’re behaving worse than the Rich Man in the story of Lazarus? More akin to billions of prodigal sons, we’re squandering Your blessings on ourselves in the face of overwhelming local and global physical and spiritual, social and economic need. Given Your warning: “whatever you've done or fail to do for the least of these You've done to Me” Oh God, "In wrath remember mercy" and grant us Living Faith before it's too late.

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