This evening I decided to "treat" myself. After all, I've had a fairly rough week, and I thought I deserved a little special treatment. So I ran me a nice hot bubble bath (three cap-fuls for extra bubbles) and settled in with Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy". I came across this:

"Many call themselves by the name of Christ, talk much about God, and pray to Him sometimes, but evidently do not know who He is."

My first reaction was: yeah, those people are stupid.

Then God gently reminded me that I'm one of "those people". Here I was, sitting in a tub of hot, sudsy water, thinking I deserve all the blessings in my life. While I had been thinking about how rough my day was, I was reminded about those who don't have warm water for a bath, much less clean water to drink. I have been blessed to born in this country, blessed to have a job, blessed to be able to afford scented bubble bath and nail polishes and all sorts of cosmetics that are luxuries to the majority of the world.

I realized how easy it is to lose sight of God and focus instead on what I think I've "earned". Not that I'm not to enjoy my blessings. God has been gracious enough to give me everything I need and then some. However, I need to remember to use those blessings to bless others and not to hoard them away. And that I didn't do anything to merit them, but I received them anyway. That's grace.