The LORD has done great things for us, And we are glad. (Psa 126:3 NKJ)

“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.” ― A.W. Tozer

Sometimes we moan and complain about the most trivial things. Yet there are those who should be complaining, but they chose to be thankful.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer. A critic of the Soviet system, he spent eight years in prison and three years in exile.  He wrote:

“It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes, I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power, I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments, I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts…. That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!” I…have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Vol. 2, 615-617)

I want to declare today that the LORD has done great things for us, And I am glad.