Thankfulness - A way of life
Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Eph.5:20
We take most of life for granted. It is often only in difficult times or in crisis that we do not. It is usually at such times that we truly have been appreciated that we have been helped or have survived. However feeling thankful should not well up in us only at hose times. It should characterize our whole way of life.
We truly possess only what we are thankful for. What we take for granted is something that we do not really have; it slips through our fingers. The things that we are thankful for are the things that we endow with meaning. These things can be the momentous, or small and seemingly insignificant. We can be thankful not only for the gifts of life and health, friendship and safety but also for kind words, a beautiful sunset or that things went well at work.
Gratitude is thus an acknowledgement that so much of our life is really a gift. These gifts come from God's generous heart through the loving hands of others. Life itself comes from Him and so does joy, well-being, safety, meaning and purpose. In being thankful, we not only please God and give others their rightful due, but we weave a more beautiful pattern into the fabric of our life with others.
Thankfulness puts melody in our hearts and helps us to see the source and giver of life. Gratitude helps us to rightly define ourselves and to see ourselves in a proper light. For we do not make all happen; we are simply recipients of so much from the Father's hand. We are not wholly the makers of our own destiny; we have been given so much by others. When we have the eyes to see, our whole way of life can be marked by thankfulness and thus by a new inner joy....
Lord, give me the eyes to see the blessing that You constantly give to me so that my life may be characterized by thankfulness to You for Your grace, blessing and mercy... Amen.
