Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted . . . They are more than can be numbered.  Psalm 40:5

The old hymn reminds us to “count your many blessings, see what God has done.”  So often focus on all we must do with work, family, children, soccer practice, meetings that we forget to stop and look at the blessings we receive. 

A difficult task our pastors have is to break through our focus of all the problems we have to look at the blessings God has given us. Sometimes we are so busy thinking about the trials in our lives we don’t open our hearts to hear the Word that is being taught.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss of Revive Our Hearts has an excellent teaching on preparing yourself to be a listener to the sermon.  “If your heart is hardened or it’s preoccupied with things of the world, the most anointed preaching is not going to make a whole lot of impact on you, if the condition of your heart isn’t right.”  Click Here to go to the podcast page. It was posted October 16, 2006.  A great listen and a a heart’s eye opener.