- Not The Only One!
- Post # 54
- Thankfulness!
- Hey, gang ,I hope that you guys are being your best version’s of yourselves as we prepare to dive into the festivities of the holidays and all that may include for you, your families and others that you may be showing love towards. I believe that we all have so much to be thankful for as we head into Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of those holidays like Mother’s Day, it should be celebrated each and every day. I get that all moms aren’t good, or good all the time, but that doesn’t take away from the complexity of the job, what entails and how it should be celebrated and honored. The same is true of Thanksgiving, we are so blessed in our lives, our communities and as a people. Much of what I’m going to say here is perspective driven and I hope that it challenges some of you in your thought process and thinking about what and how blessed that we truly are. There are things in our lives that blocks blessings from being more readily apparent in our lives and one of the biggest blessings blockers is our attitudes. We spend way more time complaining and grumbling than being thankful. In fact many of our complaints are actually blessing in disguise. We complain about our jobs and we never consider how many other people don’t have the blessing of a job in their lives, and would, may not kill to take your place, but probably willing to go through great lengths to do what you take for granted. We complain about our kids and the messiness sometimes associated with them, but you can’t imagine your life without them. The same could be said about spouses, significant others, friends , or maybe a dozen other things in our lives that are blessings that we take for granted. We aren’t guaranteed to have a roof over our heads, food on our tables or clothes on our backs, yet we often take it as some kind of automatic. So much of this is perspective and I believe the more blessings we have in our lives, the more we feel or become entitled. The first thing you have upside down is that every blessing that you have in life is a gift from God. This is where we begin to get it twisted. We further become delusional . Let me explain ,if you take credit for or give credit to your talents, gifts, intellect, hard work, some unspecified college or university, achievement, position, or anything else that you think solely contributed to your success or well being in life, then your thinking is deeply flawed. All good gifts in life come from God , including that breath you just took. It wasn’t owed to you, you did nothing to earn it, you couldn’t guarantee that there would be another one after that one, but it was freely given to you by God. We are so head strong in our beliefs that our accomplishments and achievements have some how granted us favor. We like the, look at me and what I have done by rolling up my sleeves and buckling down, and the sweat of my brow. We don’t like to think of ourselves as wealthy, fortunate, or blessed, but compared to the majority of the world we are, even the people who fall ” under the poverty line “, are better off than majority of the world. Stop for a quick second and give a little thought about what separates you ,in your however many beds and baths that you currently dwell in, opposed to some one living in a grass hut with a dirt floor. If you can come up with anything outside of the providence of God, then I would love to hear about it. None of us can determine when and where we were to be born, or into what kind of family environment. I’m unaware of a single person who could determine if they were going to be born with some heinous birth defect or not. I get that on the other side of that, that some of you have been touched by having special needs children or perhaps a sibling in your circle . In order to be thankful and grateful, we have to realize that there has been a blessing in our lives, determine who is the author or giver of that blessing and remember to say thank you for it. I supposed that many of us are far to preoccupied with the scratching and clawing for the next thing , and yet for others it seems to be so effortless. I’m not going to engage in a philosophical debate about why wicked people seem to prosper beyond compare , while others suffer greatly or extreme anguish at times, but I know that somehow in God’s economy it plays out for good in the end. Again, I’m not saying that all things are good in life, but that God can somehow use the brokenness to bring about transformation and sometimes beauty that we can catch a glimpse of. I earlier spoke of blockers to gratitude and I pointed to our attitudes. Another gratitude blocker is the comparison game. We will never fully be able to ascertain the fullness of blessings in our lives if we are always looking around and comparing ourselves to others and their material blessings, be it health, family, finances or whatever. This speaks directly to contentment and gratefulness. It’s pretty hard to be thankful and grateful, if you can’t appreciate what you already have in your life. I get that we live in the age of the upgrade , be it super sizing a meal at the local drive through window or moving from a three bedroom to a four bedroom house. I think that sometimes we have trouble distinguishing between wants and needs. I believe that we talk ourselves into things and some how convince ourselves that they are needs such as adding that 15 to twenty inches to our flat screen TV. It may add to the enjoyment of the audio visual experience, but that doesn’t qualify as a need. If we are going to be honest with ourselves and take a hard look in the mirror, we are going to have to confess under conviction that much of this goes back to the comparison game. We are often busy trying to compete. with a neighbor, such as The Jones, or a sibling, who you view as just a little bit more successful than yourself. We falsely convince ourselves once again that we are some how a failure if we don’t have the latest or biggest model. It truly is a shame that we see ourselves as less than, or think that we don’t measure up, because we don’t have what others have. We have to believe and acknowledge that we are more than the sum of things that we posse and own. The truth of the matter is that we are nothing more than Stewards and managers of the things in our possession. We don’t take anything with us when we leave, so it’s not like the one who has the most toys at the end wins. I believe a big part of gratitude is the return of some portion of that blessing to the giver or to others as a thank you. The Bible speaks of a tithe as in a tenth, , but that is not specific to financially only . It can be of your time, your talents ,or whatever you have been blessed with . This will look differently for everyone, but its something that should be done voluntarily and cheerfully. There is no fast and furious rule that states , when we are blessed with more that we are supposed to use it for an upgrade on something that is more of a want than a need. We are also not required to bury it in the ground like a squirrel does when he finds an extra acorn on his way up the tree. If we truly understand the principle of a blessing, it is to be a blessing to others and as we do that, we make space for even more blessings in our own lives. I get that sometimes it’s hard to see blessings in the midst of heart ache and brokenness, but it is usually present. It is usually a matter if we choose to search and look for it in the sorrows of life. This is one true story among many like it. A teenage daughter was killed in a tragic car accident. Yes, it’s true, her parents will never get to hug her again and her father will never get to walk her down the aisle . Her organs went to benefit no less than eight other people. Someone gets to see because of her, someone else got to get off of dialysis. A young mother with twin boys got a heart that will help her keep pace with them, and someone else profited from her liver, and the list goes on. I’m not trying to somehow lessen the sorrow and loss of her life, as it just may sound as if she was stripped for parts. All I’m trying to show is that some good came out of the pain and suffering. In a way she lives on, this is just ground zero impacts, we have no idea , what those retinas will read, or create or be instrumental in bringing forth for society or mankind. . We don’t know what developmental advantages those two little boys may be able to accomplish by having their mom for some additional time. The lost of one life tragically, may pay dividends for generations to come. This has never been more eloquently expressed than at the cross of calvary. One life freely given to benefit generations into the future. This is the purest example of love that there has ever been. Eloquently done and extravagantly expressed. Blessing are all around us everyday, if we will just stop or slow down enough to take the time to notice and to be appreciative. We live in a society of instant gratification and that has also dampened our ability to be grateful and thankful. Much of what I have learned from and about God , has been directly connected to me being a parent myself. I remember when my kids were younger, they would frantically ask me for different things, sometimes a toy, and perhaps sometime down the road , I may find said toy in the yard under the deck of the mower, or in the driveway under the wheels of my pick up . The point is that something that carried so much urgency for them, quickly became yesterday’s old news and insignificant for them. Perhaps this is a kids lot in life, but I challenge you to look around the house, in those closets, or may be in the garage, at all those things that we just had to have piling up or probably being gathered up for the next yard sale. How can we have hope and be grateful if we can think of it today and Amazon deliver it tomorrow?. There are things that we ask for that we don’t need or God in His Infinite wisdom knows would just be disastrous for us. It could be that Harley that we have been wanting for the last 15 years, and how many of us have hoped and prayed for a huge lottery win, talking about a target on your back☺️☺️☺️. Some are gifted enough to handle such a gift and it could be completely devastating for someone else. Today is Thanksgiving, how many of us can’t enjoy that and the true meaning of it because it is gaged by what we don’t have ,opposed to all that we are truly actually blessed with . This is not my own because I’ve never been on a foreign mission trip, I have been out of the country, just not on mission, so may be slightly mine. When you go out of the country to third world nations or any place not as blessed as we are, they are so much more happy and content because they aren’t caught up in what they don’t have. They may have to walk miles to get water and carry it on their shoulders and miles in the opposite direction to get to use it and they are grateful and thankful for water and the ability to get it. We just have to go across the room and turn on a tap and we find a dozen things to be discontent about as we sloth across the room to get a glass of clean drinking water. Historically America has been a very generous nation, especially in times of natural disasters, be it here or somewhere else in the world. The question is , are we grateful towards God and all of his unending favor, or is it not so much! Let’s practice Thanksgiving, not just today, but every day. Remember that it’s about perspective. Some may say, as long as you have your health, that you have everything, but we know that is not true, whether your health is good or not, and good health today, is no guarantee of that being the case tomorrow. However if we look around there are always so many things to thank God for, it could be as simple as a smile on a child’s face, or perhaps all of the lights were green on your way into work that morning you was running late. So remember to be Grateful and thankful and to practice generosity and contentment. Life is just better with Thanksgiving and it plays out in your well being as in mentally, physically , emotionally and most important spiritually.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
- Reply
- ,
- Reply All
- or
- Forward
Send
21
Send
21
