Thanksgiving and Gratitude

“It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.” Naomi Williams

How often do you criticize and complain? My answer: more than I’d like to admit. When I do, I have simply lost my focus on gratitude. I have lost my focus on just how blessed I am. Think about that for a moment. If I am full of gratitude, thinking often about the multitude of blessings my Heavenly Father has lavished on me, how could I criticize? How could I complain?  

Does this passage apply to you? Do you feel it in your bones? 

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1)  

Gratitude is like aspirin: the miracle medicine that can help with a multitude of ailments.  With a spirit of gratitude, ailments such as worry, anxiety, fear, and yes, even envy, greed, lust, and unforgiveness can all be mitigated, and often eliminated.  

If I cannot seem to forgive someone, I obviously have forgotten his forgiveness of me.  

Am I worried and full of fear and anxiety?  When I focus on all that he has already done for me, the incredible richness of His grace and mercy and love, and the lavishness of His blessings, then … Dayenu!¹ “What exactly was I so worked up about?”  

Luke tells us the story of the overwhelming gratitude of a woman who had “lived a sinful life.” She fell at Jesus’ feet, washing his feet with her tears. When Jesus’ host, Simon, turned his nose up at such base behavior, Jesus called him out on it:  

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.     

“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”  (Luke 7:44-47)  

Simon could have run theological circles around this woman. His performance-resume was squeaky clean and top-notch. But he did not have what she had: love, exploding with gratitude. She had been forgiven so much, and she knew it. She was compelled, undaunted, even overwhelmed by her gratitude.   

Are you?  

If you are not overwhelmed with this gratitude, may I suggest, gently, but with necessary bluntness, one of two observations?  

1. You have not yet been saved by His grace.  
2. If you have, you are then indeed an ingrate.  

(Happy Thanksgiving 😊) 

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If you want a little more: My First 60 Seconds 

Each morning, before I even open my eyes, I spend a few minutes thanking Jesus for the blessings in my life.   My list may include things such as the house in which I live, the car I drive, and my beloved Greenville. I then typically move to more weighty matters, such as my family’s good health, that he has allowed me to work for him, the parents he gave me, and my salvation. And on.  

We call it, “The First 60 Seconds.”  

Try this. It will transform the way you get out of bed and start your day.  

¹Dayenu: Hebrew for “It would have been enough”