As we talked, I shared my thoughts on my experiences regarding a thankful heart both personally and by having so much contact with so many other people over the years. I have even challenged people in my classes with this exercise.
In our relationship with God, how thankful are we? Where is our heart when it comes to gratitude? You can grab a pencil (I love pencils) or pen and some paper and actually test yourself on this or just ponder it in your mind. I must say that actually doing it will make an impact that you will remember for some time.
Start by listing your "needs," then list your "wants," then your "desires, hopes, or dreams." I imagine for most, creating a nice sized list won't take very long. Now make a list of all that you are thankful for. For me, creating a thankful list takes a lot more effort and work. Applying my best effort, the list pales in size to what I want. I realize I may be the last ungrateful person on the planet but maybe some of you find yourself with the same struggle.
What does that tell us about our relationship with God? I am not going to attempt to define it for you, I want you to really answer that for yourself. Is life really lacking so much that we have yet to receive more than we have already received? Okay, that was a tongue twister, read that last sentence a couple times and it will make more sense. Also, when you read that sentence over a couple times replace "we" with "I." I would hate to think that life has given any of us so little that all we see is lack, need, want and desire.
I have lost businesses, a home, all my toys and prized possessions but life has been so full of blessings that those losses are meaningless to what I have received. Have I always acknowledged that? No! I have spent my share of time pouting, screaming, and kicking stones down the street. When I start running a tantrum, God gently alerts me to how blessed I am and I always seem to bump into someone who has less but is far more grateful. He has an amazing way of implementing attitude adjustments. Those adjustments are ones that I never seem to forget.
Years ago, we were really going through a pretty tough time. We had some family issues that were out of control. My business was doing horribly and we were borrowing money to pay bills and the house payment. Looming in the near future was the reality that we would lose the dream home we built and planned to live in forever. I was in a big grocery store walking up and down the aisles looking for something I could not find. I was probably looking for Hershey's chocolate syrup - I can never find it. It is in a place that simply makes no sense to me and I always end up asking for help. I was whining and complaining out loud. I was stomping up and down the aisles criticizing whoever decided where this thing was to be shelved. If only there had been something in the aisle to kick!
I walked down an aisle and turned the corner to head up the next aisle and almost fell over another person. This person was in a motorized wheel chair and was steering it with a lever he moved with one crooked finger of a cramped up hand. It took a nano second to clearly understand that God was teaching me a lesson. My life would not be seen as anything resembling hard by this person and now, it was no longer seen that way by me. That person may have wondered at times if he had a purpose or wondered what he could do but I tell you he was an amazing man. He had just been used by God Almighty to teach a whining, selfish, ungrateful man how warped his perception of his life was. He was an instrument of God that day many years ago and I am thankful I ran into him.
Are the grateful really dead? Well, many are but I think there is hope for their resurrection!
Let's take this idea home. Are we grateful for our families and what they do? Are we grateful for our moms and dads and what they do or even more for who they are? Are we grateful for our spouses for who they are and what they do? Are we thankful for the policeman that gave you a speeding ticket last week? Why would anyone be thankful for that? Maybe by giving out tickets they keep all of us from running each other over. Anyhow, you get the point.
Thankful for my spouse? Why that little lazy person just annoys me by leaving dirty clothes all over the floor! Okay all you gender profilers, girls also leave dirty clothes laying around! Perhaps your spouse does that. What about all of the other positive things he/she does? Maybe like our list of wants, we want them to do more and more. Maybe like our list of things we are thankful for, we take those for granted. Maybe we are so busy mentally creating a list of wants that we are foolishly negligent in our listing of things to be grateful for.
At church we have been preparing for a Thanksgiving service. Maybe at home we should be preparing for a thanksgiving effort of our own. Wouldn't it be cool to start a new tradition at home? What if we taped a piece of paper for each one living in our home on the fridge? Then every day during the week of Thanksgiving, everyone had to write what they appreciated about every other person in the home on their particular page?
Most of us don't hear thanks nearly enough. Most of us don't say thanks nearly often enough. It is all a matter of perspective. In reality, the lack of thankfulness comes from an over the top focus on ourselves.
Here is my last thought. We had a week of prayer many years ago at the church we attended. We gathered twice a day for seven days to pray for whatever came up. Some things were given by church leadership and others were written on cards and passed out. We broke into small groups and prayed. When I am involved in such things, I always look for a personal message from God. He always speaks to my heart if I am patient. That particular week, I came twice a day and listened with all my heart. Nothing came to me. The very last meeting on the very last day, I still had not come away with anything. People began leaving until the entire sanctuary was empty. I was determined to be patient and wait still longer. I sat alone for around ten minutes when I finally felt God inspire me. It was as if He told me to become the most thankful person ever. Wow! I started off on my new mission. I worked hard at it and shared with others thinking they may feel inspired to also take on the challenge. Years later, I confess, I failed miserably. It lasted a while but my "needs" and "wants" took over. The line between "needs" and "greeds" blurred and I was not much better than I was before. We lost and sold most of our possessions in our financial crisis only to grow more thankful for little things. The less we have the more we have, if that makes sense.
I still am not the world's most thankful person - not by far. But I would like to be because it seems the more grateful and thankful a person is, the richer their life is. If we want to have a wonderful life, then forget about wants and greeds and focus on being thankful and grateful. Living a life filled with thanksgiving will give you a much better life than you would have if you woke up and found your garage full of all the things on your want list.
I believe the grateful can be raised from the dead! Happy Thanksgiving!!
NOTE
If you go to the top of the page, you will see "more." If you click on that, your will see a drop down menu. At the bottom of that menu, you will see, "I'm thankful for ..." Click on that and it will bring up a page for us to share what we are thankful for.
It is a chance to share your heart with thousands of other people. I hope you take a couple extra minutes and send more expressions of thanks out into the world. Be one of the grateful who are alive.