Now, that's awe-inspiring

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. (Colossians 3:15-17)

Have you ever been around someone who really has a grateful heart? Their gratitude just comes through in everything they do because it is a lifestyle, not just an attitude. Another word for gratitude is gratefulness. I sometimes call this being "grace-full". Grateful people have a way of exuding grace in some of the most unlikely ways, don't they? God is focusing us on something which keeps people together - "staying in tune with each other". In other words, we don't always choose our own path and just plunge down it without regard for the feelings and needs of another. We call this being "graceful" - there is a "beauty" inherent in the movements of people who are 'grace-full'. They look beyond themselves and see those God has placed in their path. They "give the Word of God room in their lives". What happens when God's Word actually gets into the nooks and crevices of our lives - it challenges us, convinces us, and eventually changes us. We become people full of grace!

A natural outflow of truly experiencing grace in your own life is to develop the complimentary trait of being grateful. Having been deeply affected by the grace of God, we find it affects us deeply and we have to give expression to things which touch us so deeply. If we are in the habit of burying our emotions, this expression of gratitude might be just a little muted, but it is there, nonetheless. Gratitude is really an attitude - it is not something conjured up - it stems from within. Grace moves upon us - gratitude comes from within us. It is the outflow of grace. I think of this as grace priming the pump for a tremendous outflow of amazement, awe, and adoration. Gratitude is the basis of worship - for we truly don't worship what we are not thankful for in our lives. Since gratitude is the basis of worship, we appreciate what we have, so when it is gone, we mourn its loss (we don't have an attitude of gratitude).

Gratitude is really based upon the actions of grace in our lives. As God moves upon us, we experience his movement - the "outflow" should be gratitude. Yet some of us have a tough time with this trait - our attitude kind of stinks. We get into this issue of "comparing" ourselves with others and when we see they "get" something better than we do, or seem to be "getting along" better, we get a little down in the dumps. This is the sad thing about comparing - it changes our attitude toward what it is we DO have! We have to "cultivate" this attitude of gratitude - it takes effort to maintain our focus on what God is doing in US and not looking to what he is doing in OTHERS! I can be encouraged by your blessing, but the very moment I begin to cross-over into the space where I start to wonder "why not me", I move into envy. Envy destroys gratitude, and it limits the actions of grace in our lives. It is to be guarded against. "Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life." (Galatians 6:4-5) Gratitude focuses on the grace we have been given, sinking deeply into the place of appreciating even the smallest hint of its work, and then enjoying it with all the gusto we have. We can be excited about what God is doing in the lives of others - in fact, we are told to celebrate with them. We just need to guard carefully our tendency to then drift into comparing what God is doing there with what he is doing in us! Grace is undeserved - gratitude is an expression of awe at receiving something other than what we deserved! Just sayin!

Let us be grateful

Let me see clearly so that I may take in the amazing things coming from Your law. (Psalm 119:18 VOICE)

What is it you are not seeing that clearly right now? Is there some question you have been wrestling with for some time unable to quite reach some form of resolution or solution? Is the time you spend pondering the stuff of everyday life kind of getting harder and harder when you expected it might just let up a little? If so, you are not alone in this inability to see clearly at times - we all suffer from the same "lack of clarity", but may not always admit to it because we don't actually realize we haven't reached a point of "clarity" yet.

I think one of the greatest things which unlocks clarity in my own life is when I reach a place of gratitude in whatever are I am struggling or wrestling with at that moment. That may seem a little naive at first, but hear me out. When I transition from questioning into trusting, it usually happens when I begin to settle into being grateful for whatever it is I am facing or dealing with regardless of how tough, unfair, or monumental it may seem. I think Melody Beattie penned it beautifully when she wrote: "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend."  

It doesn't take much of a rudder to turn a huge ship, my friends. Sometimes the smallest amount of gratitude in our hearts and minds ends up bringing the deepest sense of trusting, the exact amount of hope we need, and the most insightful direction we could ever receive! We may not be removed from the tough place, but we somehow manage to see it differently. I don't know how all that works because I am not God, but I have seen him do this in my own life time and time again - simply because I turn from complaint about the issue, stop struggling to produce the answer myself, and begin to just thank him for holding me right there in the midst of it until he reveals the way out.

We don't uncover truth - it comes to us because we have opened our hearts and minds to receive it. One of the keys to unlocking our minds is to change from using the key of "questioning" to using the key of "thanking". When my marriage was falling apart many years ago, I had lots of questions, hurts, anxieties, and frustrations. The one thing that settled my heart and mind, guiding me through that tumultuous time was being grateful for what I had received and learned during those years of being together. I don't always embrace the lessons the first time I am going through them, but as I see things unwinding or getting a little chaotic in my life, I can choose to see things from a different perspective, not because I become "enlightened", but because I choose to be thankful.

We are in a season dedicated to being grateful for the many wonderful things God has placed in our lives. I challenge each of us to think upon the things we are not the most grateful for today - those tough things we are facing. As we think of those things, could we just for a moment ask God to help us change our focus from one of wrestling or struggling with those things to just being grateful for them? We don't know what awaits us around the other side of those things, but trust me on this one - when we change to a position of gratitude, we may just see possibility where we only saw challenge, hope were we only imagined the worst, and delight where we had been experiencing all manner of frustration. Just sayin!

Muddling through?

There are some of the instructions in the Bible which we just don't "get" because they seem so counter-intuitive to what life sends our way.  Whether it is "turn the other cheek", or "give and it shall be given to you", the instructions seem a little "opposite" of what most of us would think as being "rational" or "sound reasoning".  Turning the other cheek means I may get hit again - resulting in TWO wounded parts, not just one.  Giving what I have doesn't seem to make sense because everyone knows we need to have a "nest egg" of sorts to fall back on, so if I give away something I may need down the road, what sense does that make?  For most of us, the thought of being "cheerful no matter what" is almost as counter-intuitive as the other two.  Yet, this is the way God want us to live - so it behooves us to understand how to incorporate these attitudes or actions into our lives.

Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. (I Thessalonians 5:16-18 MSG)

Bad stuff doesn't elicit high spirits and praise from me most of the time - how about you?  When the stuff hits me like a load of bricks, I seldom just jump up and down with the lightest of spirits and embrace it with an ungrudging attitude.  In fact, I want to whine a little!  I want to throw a pity party - not a celebration of praise!  Yet, God doesn't want us to live in misery - even when the "bad stuff" comes our way.  So, figuring out how to "deal with" the things we might not think of as remarkably wonderful in our lives is pretty much not an option in his eyes!

Really, the crux of our instruction comes not in the reminder to "be cheerful no matter what", but in the next two instructions of "praying all the time" and "thanking God no matter what happens".  These two actions result in a change of heart (and attitude) which actually helps to "deal with" the bad stuff which has landed in our laps.  Prayer is more than words - it is an attitude of heart and mind.  I don't spend a whole lot of time in what some might call "structured prayer".  I do spend a whole lot of time in purposeful consideration of the issues at hand and thoughtful repose before God waiting on him to give me a little revelation into the next step I should take.  Prayer is more than the words we utter - it is the attitude of heart and mind we maintain when we are faced with the stuff we don't understand.

In other words, God is reminding us to keep our minds attentive on him and our hearts affixed to his.  These two actions do more to keep us from begrudging the circumstances we may find coming our way at times than any other actions we might take.  Wherever our minds tend to wander, that becomes the focus of our hearts.  So, reining in our thoughts is often the first step we take in facing things with a cheerful heart.  

Thanksgiving is something which stems from a right perspective.  Whenever we see things as "unfair" or "one-sided" it is usually because we only have our eyes on ourselves.  God's instructions to be cheerful at all times and be thankful no matter what happens requires us to look beyond ourselves and see the vastness of the world around us.  We need the "bigger picture" perspective.  When we look beyond ourselves, we often begin to see how the "load" we may be asked to carry today is actually helping someone else be relieved from a burden they have been carrying for a while all alone. 

Thanksgiving is really a sense of gratitude - being cognizant of the blessings we have, but also of the need to sometimes step up our game to go beyond what we are comfortable doing.  We have been given so much - more than we actually need in truth - so learning to be grateful even in the times we are asked to carry a little more than what seems "fair" at the moment is truthfully just a response of heartfelt appreciation for the many blessings we actually have.

Cheerfulness is the attitude of heart and mind the world often sees long before anything else.  They may not know our many blessings for which we are grateful for, nor may they realize how much we rely upon our "secret conversations" with the one who knows the end from the beginning.  What they do see is our attitude of heart.  So, our instruction is to continually display the heart of Christ - even when the going gets a little tough.  We have the resources to make it through - we just need to maintain the right attitude in the journey.  Just sayin!

Recalling our past

Every now and again we just need a reminder to be grateful, don't we?  When I stop to consider some of the stuff others around me are dealing with, my "issues" pale in comparison.  When I stop to consider my "momentary afflictions", the life-long battles some face with disease make my aches and pains look like a vacation.  Sometimes we forget the principle of thanksgiving as the scriptures would teach:  Give thanks IN everything, not necessarily FOR everything.  We don't have to give thanks for the flat tire, but we can give thanks we have roadside service to get it changed!

On your feet now—applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into his presence.  Know this: God is God, and God, God. He made us; we didn’t make him.  We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.  Enter with the password: “Thank you!”  Make yourselves at home, talking praise.  Thank him. Worship him.  For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever.  (Psalm 100 MSG)

It probably goes without saying, but God looks at our responses to what life sends our way.  He evaluates these responses - good and bad - because it speaks about what is really in our heart.  How we respond is a direct correlation to what the attitude of our heart is.  When gratitude is our attitude, the heart is probably pretty well connected with the heart and intention of God!  A little gratefulness today actually gets us a stronger connection with God when tomorrow's events will attempt to pull us away! Gratefulness if kind of like a "glue" for our souls - it holds us close to the heart of God in times when everything else would like to pull us away!

Have you ever stopped to consider gratefulness in light of what is in your past?  If we are honest, how we view the events of our past often determine how it is we will face the events of our present.  If we develop an attitude of gratefulness for those things in our past, often the things in our present are made a little easier to deal with.  "Recall" is a powerful tool.  How and what we recall is almost always a matter of the amount of gratefulness we have developed toward life's events.  How we recall is "tainted" either by any of the emotions of a spirit of fear, anger, distrust, envy, pride, or perhaps joy, peace, praise, and hope.  What we recall is often a matter of how well "glued" we are to God's heart.  When things don't exactly go as we had hoped or expected, there is no opportunity for any of the negative emotions to guide our spirit of recall when we have "glued" ourselves to the heart of God.

Did you ever stop to consider the value of the past?  Most of the time you have heard me say we need to leave the past in the past - especially as it applies to hurts, disappointments, and the like.  Yet, the past, if rightly viewed through eyes of gratefulness, is what got us to today.  Without the past, there wouldn't be a today!  Not everything in my past is worth praising God for - but he lessons learned from even the worst of failures are!  I can look back, see his protection, thank him for his provision of grace, and nuzzle up all the closer to him because I recognize those things in my past actually drew me closer to his heart.  The same is true for each of you - those things in your past you'd probably rather forget are actually things which brought you to the place of nuzzling up a little closer to God's heart!

In the moment, it is sometimes hard to see God in the midst of the problem. In retrospect, we often can see exactly where it was he was restraining us, holding us up, and keeping us safe.  The power of gratefulness comes in recognizing those moments - even if it is after the fact.  Gratefulness is a way of honoring God's leadership over our lives.  Whenever we do this, we are in the best possible position.  If you have ever opened a can of beets, you know there is a very red liquid inside.  That liquid has the potential to change what it touches.  If you will indulge me, try this the next time you open a can of beets.  Take a piece of paper towel - the entire sheet.  Put the can of beets, with all its liquid inside a large bowl.  Now, put the paper towel into the fluid - just one corner, not the whole sheet.  What you will see in time is the influence of the fluid on the paper towel.  The longer the towel makes contact with the red fluid, the deeper red the towel becomes, until it is fully saturated with the red substance.  

What you have just witnessed is the influence just a little contact can make in the ability to change things in your life.  We only need to get a little corner of our hearts close enough to God's heart in order to see the rest of our heart just "sop up" his goodness.  Just sayin!