30 Days of Gratitude - Day 3 - New Life

I love the Fall and especially November. I love that this time of year causes many to pause and reflect on what we are thankful for. Today I have read a lot of Facebook posts of people playing Thankfulness Catch Up. That is posting Days 1 through 3 of what they are thankful for. Thankfulness in any form does my heart good.

Last night in the Youth Group we did Session One of FrancesChan’s Bible Study Surrender which was to Surrender Stuff. I don’t know about you but every time I hear the word “stuff” my mind automatically breaks into the Madame Blueberry’s Stuff Mart Rap.

Check it out! Check it out!

If you want a big hat

We got that!

If you need a tube of glue

We got that too!

A 20 gallon wok?

They’re in stock!

Stuff. Things. Possessions. Materialistic objects. Or should we be so brave to name them? The newest cell phone, the newest luxury car, the newest name brand clothing, shoes and purses, even the newest home appliances and décor, the list is never ending and always leaves us singing the blue-hoo-hoo’s because our inner being remains hollow. I am just as guilty as Madame Blueberry of buying frivilous stuff and filling my house with things I don't need. 

So what does it take for us to surrender those belongings? To keep stuff from jumping or appearing in our shopping cart? Or keeping those wants from taking over our thoughts?

Not that stuff is bad, but when the stuff consumes us and we become materialistic it causes us to worship things and lose focus. What happens when we lose focus? We stumble and fall into that disgusting pit of being ungrateful. You know that pit? I do! I’ve been there many times in all its ugliness and I often have to pull my children out of it because we are quick to forget what we have been given freely because we have become consumed and focused on what we don’t have.

In the First Session, Frances Chan gave us the cure for coveting possessions. It is a cure that my grandmother and my mother both used, so I would say it is timeless. The cure is to look at those who have less than you. Simple, huh?

When we see someone sleeping on the ground, it should make us thankful we have a bed.

When we see someone digging through a trash can for food, it should make us thankful we have food.

When we see someone with holes in the soles of their shoes, it should make us thankful to have shoes with good soles.

And the list can go on…but how easily we forget.

The One that changed my life...created this sunrise.

When we surrender stuff we can become awestruck by the Lord our God and the daily goodness He gives to us all, “for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust”. (Matthew 5:45) We are richly blessed beyond measure, if we will focus on what we have. Most of us can be thankful to have:

1)      Air
2)      Gravity
3)      Water
4)      Food
5)      Free will

In addition, to His wonderful works of creation and life, I am thankful for the Lord’s eternal goodness, mercy and grace in my life.

I am thankful today for a new life. A life here on earth of abundance; plus an eternal home and life I will continue to enjoy after this physical life is over because I have been bought.

Thankful to the Spirit of God for opening my eyes to the Truth that “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25). Thankful that God chose and selected me as His daughter, so that I might proclaim His works.

His goodness.

His faithfulness.

Because Jesus Christ died on the cross He has taken away my sin. May I learn Hebrews 13:5 to live my life without covetousness and to be content with such things that I have. Afterall I have the most important promise that He will never leave nor forsake me.