It's cliché, but true--we don't really learn to appreciate many things until they're taken away. It also demonstrates the truth that we are generally an ungrateful bunch, taking God's great blessings for granted as if they ought to be there every day...as if He owes them to us somehow. Of course, unbelievers have no capacity to be truly grateful to God. But in the body of Christ, so many of us, while we may not be actively complaining (which is a sin...addressed very clearly in this sermon by my pastor last week--causing much conviction, I might add), we really don't actively give God thanks for His blessings. We live under His daily mercies with the assumption that they will always be there for us. Sun. Rain. Air. Food. Sleep. Family. Clothes. House. Friends. Neighbors. Church. Health. E-mail. Income. Job. Doctors. Transportation. And infinitely more. You should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea