Attitude Of Gratitude
My voice You shall hear in
the morning, Oh Lord,
in the morning I will
direct it to You.
Psalm 5:3
Scripture says,"Do not grumble...God is faithful"
(1 Corinthians 10:10-13). Just as we human fathers
do, God wants His children to be thankful...even
when the going is rough. The apostle Paul said:
"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's
will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Thankfulness is more than an act; it's an attitude.
A negative attitude toward life is an offense to
the One who created us. That is why ingratitude
is associated with unbelievers. "For although they
knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave
thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and
their foolish hearts were darkened" (Romans 1:21).
Complaining about out lot is rebellion against
God. Thankfulness is submitting to Him and His will.
(Ephesians 5:20) Grief however, should end in accepting
whatever adversity, loss, disaster, death, and so
forth, that caused it. This doesn't mean we should
trivialize evil and deny its reality. Scripture
tells us that "in all things God works for the good
of those who love Him, who have been called according
to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). It does not tell
us that all things are good. Evil exists and God does
not ask us to be thankful for it. This is not what
Paul meant when he instructed us to give thanks in
all circumstances.
We should always be on the lookout for something
positive even when circumstances are bad. To sniff
out the good, we have to be on the alert; we generally
find only what we're looking for. This is called
selective perception, and it accounts for some
people believing more accidents happen on Friday
the 13th than on other days. It's not true that more
accidents occur on that day. People just think they
do because they watch for them.
Some of us are pesimists to the core...programmed
to notice selectively what's bad. Behind every cloud
we see another one, and behind that one a tornado.
As fathers, we can help our kids sniff out the good
things in life by doing so ourselves. We stand a
better chance of spotting them if we realize God's
gifts don't always come in the form of miracles.
Christians when asked what they're thankful for
tend to focus on the unusual or the spectacular
an unexpected gift of money, a friend trusting
Christ as Saviour, an accident narrowly aveted.
Certainly, we should praise God for these, but
we should also thank Him for the ordinary: that your
3-yr-old was finally potty trained; that we made it
through a busy week, that we have Christian friends to
support us. God is responsible for these blessings.
God's works are natural as well as supernatural.
He makes the grass grow, feeds the lions, causes the
rain to fall. God is behind the ordinary as well as
the extraordinary.
We should search for life's gifts like kids
searching under the Christmas tree for presents
with their names on them. Every gift that is good
and perfect comes from God (James 1:17).
Look for them and have an attitude of gratitude.
Copyright © 2004
Liz and LivingFaith
All rights reserved
