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by Jim Stern
Fascinating that no one must teach us to be selfish. No one must teach us to take things for granted. And no one must teach us to compare our lives to others.
But we must be taught, and be reminded, to be grateful!
That we must learn gratitude, something that is incredibly wonderful, is weird. That we have to be continually reminded is weirder.
The Psalmist declares in Psalm 100:4-5,
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.”
Thanksgiving should be the organic response of our experience of our Father’s goodness, lovingkindness, and faithfulness. So, gratitude is not forced or manufactured. Gratitude flows from a heart that is at rest in the leadership of the Shepherd.
The oddity of learning gratitude isn’t because gratitude is hard, the oddity is because we can so easily lose sight of our Father’s daily provision and care.
“The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.” (Deuteronomy 1:30-31)
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11)
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
That Deuteronomy passage is amazing. What a powerful picture of His desire to be our Father!
My issue with God our Father is always pace. Not that His timing is not my timing, which it is not, but that I just get out in front of Him way too often. I spend time breathing into His love and leading in the morning and by 9:00am I am flying through my day, with no conscious reality of His leading. No asking Him to speak into the various items I have already tackled in my own brilliance and wisdom.
Zoom, zoom, and more zoom.
I am not sure, “In this season of Thanksgiving let’s remember to be more grateful,” is a word that will stick. I think the deeper issue is, “In this season of Thanksgiving, let’s remember to slow down, to breathe deeper, to surrender task by task, and let Him lead!”
Then gratitude will not only flow, but it will abound!
May you and yours have an excellent week of life, love, and… THANKSGIVING.
