When Life Just doesn't Add Up

Psalm 138:8
The LORD will perfect that which concerns me: your mercy, O LORD, endures forever: forsake not the works of your own hands.

Today, I want to talk a bit about the ups and downs of life; the positives and the negatives.....additions and subtractions! If I were to ask some people to give me a sum total of how life was for them in 2012, I would get an abundance of answers, that reveal to me, all of the negative things; the disappointments, the hurts, and the failures that they have experienced. The truth of the matter is, that we as Christians, seem to have it kind of rough some times; dealing with the World and all of it's cares. We are at a time, when we are faced with the reality of 2012. Where did 2012 leave you spiritually? Did it leave you in increase or lack? With knowledge or confusion? Did you win or did you lose? Did your territory indeed see an enlargement or were you bound by invisible borders, that kept you trapped in one spot?  Some will say that I found myself, with an increase of faith, knowledge, and a deeper relationship with Christ...my territory was enlarged and I am dancing to the beat of Jubilee!! And there are others saying, what about me? I love the Lord, but I seem to have come up short! I feel that I have missed out on things, unable to accomplish my goals, tapped out financially, sapped out emotionally, and drained out spiritually!
Did 2012 leave you trying to calculate your outcome? Trying to figure out why life didn't balance out at the end of the year? Why things just didn't add up? The feeling that "I should be there; but I'm still here!....I should have that, but I have this!...I should've experienced gain; but I experienced loss! I should be healthy; but sickness has been persistent!"  ...And you just want to ask the Lord to RE-calculate what is in your spiritual bank account? Ask him to take another look at your yearly increases? Well, I did! (at least I thought it!), but since God knows my thoughts he was more than happy to go over my spiritual portfolio with me. 
As I sat in my room, reading in the book of 1 Peter, I turned the page to find a recent church bulletin, that I had put there, only to keep from leaving it on the church pew...so I thought! As I picked the bulletin up, I payed closer attention to the picture of the calculator that was on the front of it. I could not seem to look at anything else. My eyes were fixed on the addition and subtraction buttons. The fact that the addition button (+) is so much larger than the subtraction (-) button...why is that I wondered? I heard the Spirit beginning to teach this lesson. He told me that the addition button represented the promises of God, and the subtraction button represents trials and burdens. And that wherever promises are, trials are near by. He told me that the promises of God are sure and that although the trials are close by, they are but a light thing for Him and have no effect on those promises! In life, we tend to focus on the negative button! It represents your problems, your lack, and your disappointments; it's aim is to take away what God has added to you. But, God is saying that those things don't represent your future, those things are not who you are! I want you to focus on the addition button....it's the "cast your cares upon me" button; It's bigger because I'm bigger! Your life is not adding up because you continue to count your problems and not your promises! When I do the calculating, I see increase! When I sum it all up, I see favor! Then I've added grace and mercy! Followed by wisdom and power! And because my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, you will never be able to calculate all of my benefits towards you, but you can rest assured that, because I am a perfect God,  my will for your life will always render a perfect answer.