Taking Inventory

My Blackberry has been giving me issues for a couple of weeks now -- Calling random people on my phone list, not ringing which causes me to miss calls & texts, buttons getting stuck and being as tempermental as all technological gadgets can be. So I've been meaning to back up my Blackberry on my computer, in case I had to get a new phone (which I did) so I wouldn't lose all of my information. Problem was, I couldn't find my Blackberry USB chord to connect the phone to my lap top. So this weekend I decided to stop & take the time to actually look for my Blackberry chord. As I was looking through my things -- in my closet, dresser drawers, nightstand, under everything, behind everything, etc. I found several items that I thought I'd lost. I had even begun to find items that weren't ever really lost but that I forgot that I had, items that in the back of my mind were on a mental list of things I need to purchase. Now for those of you who really know me, you know that I am super organized and neat so it wasn't that things in my home had been in such disarray that I couldn't find these items. However, it was that I simply had somehow overlooked them. So I found myself sort of taking an inventory of all the things that I actually have and making a mental note that I don't have to actually go out and replace or obtain those items after all.

And I think that we all often times make the mistake of convincing ourselves that we don't have things that we need in our every day lives. We think we need love, we think we need peace, we think we need forgiveness but we already have it. We think we've run out of hope so we stop believing, we think we have run out of strength so we're ready to give up, we think our joy is gone so we remove our own happiness from our hearts, we don't see ourselves as confident so we shy away from our goals out of fear... when really and truly, if we dare to take a closer look... when we conduct a true inventory of ourselves internally, we are already equipped with everything that we need. Psalm 139:13-14 says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well".

We must acknowledge all that we posess within ourselves. Stop for a moment and take an inventory of your life. What do you really have? And most importantly, how are you going to use it?