You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
Psalms 65:11
No matter what trials comes our way, no matter what difficulties we have been facing, if we could stop and ponder on the blessings and goodness we receive from God who has showered upon us, we will have to confess that God, as always, has crowned the year with goodness.
The coronation figure is frequently used in Scripture to speak of God’s blessings in the Christian life. For example: “Bless the LORD . . . Who redeemed your life from destruction; who crowned you with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Ps 103:2, 4). Even our testings and trials are always in the context of God’s grace and love. Christ Himself wore a crown of thorns so that we may be crowned with mercy and salvation.
Consider also Psalm 5:12: “For thou, LORD, will bless the righteous; with favour will you compass him as with a shield.” The word “compass” has same meaning as “encircle.”
Other jewels in the believer’s year-end crown are God’s grace and glory. “[Wisdom] shall give to your head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to you” (Prv 4:9).
Then there is the wonderful testimony that “you have made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour” (Ps 8:5). Finally, the believer’s crown is none other than the Lord Himself: “In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people” (Isa 28:5).
Most Christians have an abundance of material blessings for which to thank God for. Even if they have none of these, however, God has crowned the year with goodness and favour, with lovingkindness and tender mercies, with grace and glory and honour and, best of all, with His own presence. If we ponder deep enough, we definitely will have much to thank the Lord for.
May the Lord grant us hearts that can be filled gratitude so that we may be thankful and contented with whatever little we have rather than begrudge what we don’t have. “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2).
