God Hunger – Meditations For A Life Of LongingExemplo

A Deeper Sense Of Thankfulness

A spirit of gratitude and thankfulness is surely one of the great keys of the kingdom. The beginning of man’s rebellion against God was the lack of a thankful heart. Do we genuinely desire and long for God, or for other things? The truth of the matter is, if we are not content and grateful for what we have and who we are, then we are not loving God as we should. As Francis Schaeffer put it, we are “coveting against God.”

A thankless spirit wants things now. Rather than being impatient, we need to learn to love the journey we are on more than the point of arrival; to learn to embrace trust rather than control. There is a supernatural power in expressing our thanksgiving to God that brings divine multiplication.

Murmuring and moaning put our focus on lack. Thanksgiving is aware of abundance. Each day we have is a gift, not a right. Our attitude towards life, towards our God, will determine the quality of the “soil” of our life and whether God can plant seed there that will lead to an abundant harvest of blessing. We can choose unbelief, murmuring and complaining against God, which leads to anger and anxiety. Or we can choose thankfulness, which leads to peace and rest. Entitlement breeds envy, greed and restlessness.

Gratitude waters the garden of our heart with wonder, joy and faith. The grass is not greener next door – it’s greener where we water it! Let us unwrap the gift of “today” with the childlike humility and awe that God’s gift deserves.

Thankfulness results in a willingness to surrender to God’s will for our lives, because we trust Him to be who He says He is for us – the perfect Father. If we want two good indications of how much we are really trusting God, we should pay attention to our levels of anxiety and anger when things don’t go our way, and to the steadiness of our stream of thanksgiving, whatever the circumstances.