Big or Little Wins - They All Matter

O Lord, I will honor and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them. (Isaiah 25:1 NLT)

Do you celebrate God in your life? Do you celebrate his goodness as well as his correction? It is an easy thing to celebrate him when he does something spectacular in your life, blessings abounding in every way. It is another thing to celebrate him when he identifies something within you that needs to change, bringing both the conviction and the grace to accomplish that change, isn't it? We might look toward heaven when all is going well, but do we tend to look inward at our failures when things didn't go so well?

The more God corrects both the big and little things in our lives, the more we can be assured we are moving in the right direction with him. We should not fear his correction because it is essentially another 'blessing' from his throne! Salvation was a 'one-time' deal. Sanctification is a life-long process, and it is one that will be riddled with both highs and lows. We will find ourselves celebrating big 'wins', like when we are finally on the other side of a habit. We will also find ourselves looking at the tiny 'wins', like when we actually understand a portion of scripture for the first time, and these need equal celebration.

God's wonders aren't limited to the 'big wins' - there are a multitude of them occurring in your life this very moment. You may not see all of them yet, but they are there, nonetheless. God's wonders demonstrate his love - and that is always something we should celebrate! They don't have to be miracles of great magnitude. There are plenty of 'wonders' that reveal both his love in our lives and his authority over our lives. We might just need to stop long enough to ponder exactly what those are.

God always accomplishes what he sets out to do. He doesn't begin a work within us without seeing it through to completion. Does that always mean it will be done in rather quick order? No, because we have a way of 'delaying his blessings' by our stubbornness, pride, and fleshly desires, don't we? We might feel his working within, knowing he is convicting us of something that requires our attention, but then deny his grace at that moment by continuing to pursue whatever it is he is asking us to lay down. Obedience is a rocky road, made up of a whole lot of 'little battles' within our mind, emotions, and will. The sooner we allow him to accomplish what only grace can do within, the sooner we will celebrate the wonder of that freedom he brings. Just sayin!