Each and every day we take tons of things for granted. We all do it. Let’s think for a minute about the super little things in life, like the fact that when you put food in your mouth, your body knows what to do with it to keep you alive and the fact that your body knows how to breathe, things like that. How many of us take a minute or even a few seconds to just realize how amazing it is that we are surviving? Probably none of us, and that is what I want to talk about today.
The prophet Yirmiyahu tells us, (Lamentations 3:22,23) ” חַסְדֵי יְהוָה כִּי לֹא-תָמְנוּ, כִּי לֹא-כָלוּ רַחֲמָיו חֲדָשִׁים, לַבְּקָרִים רַבָּה, אֱמוּנָתֶךָ- God’s mercy is not over, his compassion does not stop, they are new each morning, your faith in us is amazing.” and from this line we can learn a very important lesson about appreciation. Each and every day, God gives us a new opportunity to be alive and experience his amazing world, he has faith in us that we will do amazing things and therefore gives us a new chance. He offers us a new chance to be great and a new beginning. Each and every day we should take the time to realize that God is amazingly compassionate in the fact that all the little things go right to allow us to be alive.
There is an ancient Jewish tradition to thank God each morning with our first breath of the day, and for thousands of years Jews all over the world have said “thank you” to God a their first action each day. The traditional Hebrew prayer and its English translation and transliteration are below:
Today’s Jewish mission is to appreciate the little things that you have, the life that you have, and thank God for it as soon as you wake up, whether you use the ancient Hebrew or your own words, the goal is to realize that God has faith in us and that he constantly does little miracles that keep us alive.