Overflow With Gratitude

There are a million reasons not to be grateful right now.  And a million more to be speechless with gratitude.  Right now.  So we need to decide which lens to choose to view life.  I need to choose.  It could be that our chronic ungratefulness mostly has to do with a forgetful heart and how we focus on our circumstances.  Gratitude seems to have become a lost art.

If I’m asked what I’m most grateful for I probably have the same response as you.  Family, health and a roof.  But what answer do we give when a family divides, health fails and we feel like the roof caved?  And if you’re listening, you’ll know many are facing those situations.  So how can we be thankful for the things that we’re not thankful for?

I believe that we can be grateful when we know that God is using it for something more.  He always has something up His sovereign sleeve regarding our lives.  Always.

But there are seasons when a girl needs to run to the field and bury her head in a journal to glean the gold and the good on the page.  I’m there . . .

And I’m reminded that gratitude is a choice.  Only we can reframe our perspective and shift the deep concerns that walk around our head in the night to go lay down at some point.  The good, bad and ugly life are all aspects of gratitude – to deny one over another can wreak havoc.

An offering of trust perseveres through the pain and sees the will of God in the middle

There is a short story told within a few gospel lines (Luke 17:11-19) that tells how ten afflicted men with leprosy (an absolute horror) went to Jesus in faith and were healed along-the-way.  They not only got their life back, they were cleansed! Sounds like a huge hallelujah, but only one came back and gave praise out loud.  On his face –  at His feet.

The man riddled with disease had his heart cleansed, more importantly than the flesh.  When we believe the blessing more than the disease, it takes us to the deep place of overflow.  On our face at His feet. Jesus spoke these words to only one “you’re faith has made you well” but He also asked “where’s the nine?”

May we always be the one and not the nine He’s waiting for . . .

Especially when it comes to the greatest reason for a grateful heart that has been changed.  Through salvation ~ rescued from darkness.  It’s enough to make one overflow!

During this election season of grumbling and the “be ye thankful” season of gratitude, we have the choice which one wins.  Our testimony preaches to the world what is truly important — that God is faithful, no matter how our circumstances try to preach differently.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord , so walk in Him, having been rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith,  just as you were instructed to overflow with gratitude. Colossians 2:6,7

.