Praise God, despite the hard times

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow..." When trials and discouraging times fall upon us, it's only natural and easy to look at the situation and feel broken down, betrayed, or depressed. But recently I have been trying to look beyond the negatives in a particular situation and see how God has blessed in the situation, despite the obvious discouraging aspects. Last Friday afternoon, my camera and Brent's laptop were stolen from Jenni's and my hostel room in Pucallpa. When Jenni and I discovered this fact, I felt betrayed and pretty much was in denial. I couldn't believe that someone would take these things. It just doesn't happen to me. I hear/read about it, but not actually to me personally. But, after searching our entire room, which didn't take too long, we realized someone had come into our room and taken these two items.

As the realization set in that I would most likely 99.9% never seen my camera or Brent's laptop (which had all of Jenni's administration documents) again (unless God worked a huge miracle), I searched for the blessings that I could find in this situation. Well, first off, I didn't have any pictures really on my camera (except a few of the baby, which weren't that great anyway), I happened to not have my 4G memory card in the camera case at the time, and I even found one of my extra camera batteries in one of my other bags that I had been meaning to put in my camera bag but kept on forgetting (for which I am now thankful for forgetting). As I searched through the room to see if anything else had been stolen, I realized how many other valuable things were in the room, yet weren't taken. My passport, which was really close to the camera bag and laptop, multiple hard drives, printer, PC desktop, clothes, my laptop, and other things. The room wasn’t trashed or messed up at all. The door wasn’t broken down or anything, a very clean steal. This experience wasn’t violent, nobody got hurt or anything. Just someone decided they wanted some of our stuff and took it.

Through this whole experience, I have realized so much to be thankful for. A camera and laptop. Yes, very important and quite useful, but in the whole scheme of life, they are only things. Replaceable. It’s so easy to place a lot of value on things of this world, thinking that if we didn’t have this or that, we wouldn’t survive. This year I have learned a lot about the essentials I absolutely need to survive. And really, it’s not a lot. With this modern world the way it is, we are constantly bombarded with new gadgets, nicer clothes, better this, faster that, things we “need,” at least according to the advertising world, to survive. But I challenge each of us, myself included to not place our hearts and desires on things of this world, things that we “need.” Instead, let’s focus our eyes to the treasure God has laid in store for us in heaven. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus promises, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”