If tomorrow you were to have only the things that you are thankful for today, would you have much? Are you a thankful person? Do you remember to thank the Lord for his blessings?

In this proverb the Lord teaches us to have our heart focused on the right things. This proverb is not a command, but Solomon is telling us what he sees around him.

Solomon sees that there is so much trouble in the world. There are many miserable and horrible things that happen. There is a lot of suffering. How are we as children of God to see this? What does all this suffering teach us?

We need to know that this suffering is because of sin in the world. If Adam had not fallen into sin, then there would be none of these bad things: no sickness, no death, no crying, no pain. But Adam did fall into sin, so now we live in this sinful world. And there is nothing that we can do about it. We cannot make things right. We cannot take away the suffering. We cannot make ourselves right with God.

But God sent his Son into this world to take away our sins and suffering. Jesus Christ came to pay for our sins and make us have a covenant relationship with the Lord again. How wonderful is that!

Jesus is the only way that we can have a merry or happy heart. We can always have joy, even when we need to go through hard things. This does not mean that we can’t be sad and cry. Of course we can. But even while we are sad, we can still have joy. We can have joy because we belong to God. Jesus is our real Saviour. God is our real Father who loves us deeply. The Holy Spirit really lives in our hearts.

And we have a very real feast to look forward to. The marriage feast of the Lamb! On the new earth we will live with God forever. Oh, what joy that will be!

Reflection with your child:

How can you have joy even when things are hard for you?

Source: Sermon by Rev. W. Bredenhof