I had an economics professor last century at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who explained that each New Year’s Eve he and his wife would sit down together with a couple glasses of Hennessy Cognac, inventory their accounts, and then make a financial plan for the coming year. I don’t recall what prompted him to tell this story, but it made the class slightly more enjoyable for a few minutes, and it stuck with me. It is, quite frankly, the only lesson from the class that did.

Flash forward to the 21st century. Stan and I decided to stop at Suttle Lake Lodge on our return trip over Santiam Pass, rest our weary bones beside the massive stone fireplace, and share a couple Jameson Old-Fashions while taking stock of our blessings–in complete silence.

You see, blessings can be difficult to identify and even more challenging to articulate–not only for folks dealing with terminal diagnoses or their caregivers, but also for the fine people moving through life without having received a persistent notification of their own inevitable demise. But taking the time to identify where God has touched our lives, filled our stores, and put water in our wells is critical for making even a short-term plan.

God’s blessings, gifts, and favor are easily taken for granted and overlooked, especially the most valuable one: Faith. Faith is the stuff of hope. It’s the stuff we ought to breathe in, live on, spread around. There’s always something good hidden in the ugly. You just have to seek. Trust. Hope.

Someone recently complained to me that it’s these kinds of religious-ey words which make Christians so irritating to believers and non-believers alike. But these words aren’t just rainbows and unicorns to sprinkle around, empty cliches and taglines to throw out. I lived a lot of my life without faith in Christ, and perhaps that’s why I value it so highly now.

As I sat looking out over the lake and the rain and the mist, I could not help but think of Paul’s words to the Ephesians. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass or a mug or a cup of your favorite thing, and drink these words in:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. . . .

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Ephesians 2:8-9; 3:14-20

Mazel tov!