Thankfulness Makes You Rich

“I discovered that being thankful and experiencing the power and presence of Jesus Christ are tightly entwined. As we practice thankfulness, we experience more of God’s transforming grace, God’s there-ness” (Mark BuchananThe Road We Must Travel: A Personal Guide for Your Journey).

I keep thinking about what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said. And no, I normally don’t go around pondering the words of dead German theologians, but what he said has stuck with me ever since I read this: “It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

It’s not possessions or wealth or status that makes you rich. It’s not what car you drive or what shirts you wear or what part of town you live in.

It’s gratitude.

I’d forgotten to give thanks. I let envy and anxiety creep in (like all of us do from time to time) and forgot to be thankful for all the little things that make life great.

I still believe that when you give thanks for the minutiae, that’s when God shows up and that’s when the miracles start happening. That’s when your life becomes rich in a way that no amount of money could ever buy.

That’s what I want to get back to.

Thank you, God, for this life and forgive me if I don’t love it enough.

Amen.

 

 

Contentment and Gratitude

despicable minion

I’m learning lately how valuable contentment and gratitude are. This very consumeristic society may write off such virtues and this ever increasingly competitive world may look down on these attributes, but to me they are everything.

I’m in a friendship where I like the girl a great deal. I’m also in the place where I’m grateful to know her and very much content with the friendship. If it develops into more than friendship, that’s fantastic, but if not, I’m still blessed.

Gratitude and contentment bring rest. There’s not so much striving to get more and be more than the next guy. Comparison truly is the thief, not only of joy, but also peace.

So I’m in a good place. God is truly enough. If he says no, it only means he’s preparing me for an even bigger yes down the road. He denies me the good only because he desires to give me the very best.

So that’s where I am. Right now, I am loving being me, quirks and all. Everywhere I look the grace of God coloring all that I see. I see healing and freedom in places where only fear and bondage lived before. I see light where I couldn’t see anything before because of overwhelming darkness.

God is so very good. And it is true that eucharisteo, thanksgiving and joy expressed and poured out, always precedes the miracle.

I’m living out my miracle right now.