But as we started preparing for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, I went on a search for 38 (one for each placemat) truths about thanksgiving and gratitude.
By the time I finished finding and writing out every word the Bible says about thankfulness and gratitude, along with Shakespeare and Emerson, man alive, I couldn't even think about anything else. (I challenge you...)
I was so stinking grateful by the time our Thanksgiving rolled around I could hardly stand it. I felt RICH in Him.
I AM rich in Him.
I'm betting you are, too.
Once a year on November whatever is not enough Thanksgiving.
It's gotta be constant.
Remember last year, when I turned >gasp< 30? (Read "My Divine Butt Kick" here.) For me, it was Disastrous. Totally threw me under the bus. I worried I wasn't enough, wasn't doing enough. Hadn't "accomplished" enough. Wasn't where I thought I'd be when I turned OLD.
I got lots of good advice from friends. I spent a lot of time trying to talk to the Lord about my mini-crises. Talked to a lot of people, spent a lot of time in the Word.
But do you remember what changed it all, laid it down? Snapped?
The second I realized that I would be turning 30 on Thanksgiving Day. Everything...all my worries, all my insufficiencies, all my fretting fell to the ground in light of what a GIFT. So many Gifts.
For the first time, being 30 wasn't about needing more or being more or having more. It wasn't about having enough. It was about reaching a day that millions have desired to reach, and were never able to. Being surrounded by a million of His gifts. Having Christ. When I became THANKFUL, joy took root and replaced all my dissatisfaction. Immediately.
And it can do that ALL the time.
Pretty sure the Bible already clued in on the amazing fact that thankfulness doesn't add on to our sad, frustrating or incomplete things in our lives. It replaces them.
Does it do our Father good when we rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice? Well, He certainly doesn't NEED our rejoicing, though I do believe it blesses Him. But our rejoicing doesn't CHANGE anything for God.
But it sure does change a lot for me.
If there is anyone who has taught me to rejoice in the midst of suffering, discomforts, persecutions, injustices or hardships, it is Haiti.
Here I am in a fifth world country, known as being one of the most continually hit (cholera, earthquake, floods), most constantly poor, most corrupt countries in the world (read: injustice, persecution, poverty).
 |
| I met this woman at a tent clinic in a tent village days after the earthquake that killed her husband in 2010. |
The many radiant lives I know I contribute to mastering this principle. Maybe they choose to. Maybe they HAD to.
But many of our dear friends in Haiti seem to understand and radiate ceaseless praise.
"It was a rough weekend, but by the Grace of God, I am here today! Bless the Name of the Lord!"
"Almost every house we entered to share Christ told us to GET OUT, and some neighbors even reached for stones, but by the Grace of God, we got to share the Gospel with a few. Praise Him!"
"I don't understand what God is doing right now in my life. But please thank Him with me that He is IN my life!"
Whatever we have today, whether it seems like nothing or everything, whether you feel joy or despair or grouch, whether it feels like blessing or curse, prosperity or poverty, let's praise the Lord for who He is. Just who He is.
Take all the things stealing your joy, back-burner them, reach out for all the concrete ways that He IS in your life, praise Him. Praise the Lord. Sing His praise, write it, share it, tell it, give it, relish it.
And you will come back later only to find your back-burner empty.
Always.
No comments:
Post a Comment