With Thanksgiving less than a week away and many feeling less than thankful, I thought perhaps you would find this reading plan helpful and encouraging.
Read it HERE.
thankful heart
Cultivating a Thankful Heart
That noise! It grates on our every last nerve and sets the hairs on our neck on edge. It’s worse than nails scraping on chalkboard or our spouse grinding their teeth at night. It’s that high-pitched, face scrunched, body slumped whine. Parents, you know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?
God does, too. Only He gets it not from one child but from oh, a few billion. Nonstop.
Kinda makes you cringe, huh?
We’re all guilty of this. We have times, more than we’d like to admit where, surrounded by blessings, we zero in on the inconvenience or struggle and soon our heart’s a mess of frustration and discontentment. Even in our greatest struggle, we’re surrounded by blessings. Always. We just lose sight of them, is all.
This is why we are to thank God with ALL of our heart–every last nook, cranny, and crevice. Leaving no room–nada–for angst, frustration, or discontentment.
This has been my focus this week, and to help with this, I’ve posted Psalm 111:1-3 throughout my home:
“Praise the Lord!
I will thank the Lord with all my heart
as I meet with his godly people.
How amazing are the deeds of the Lord!
All who delight in him should ponder them.
Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.
His righteousness never fails” (NLT).
I will thank the Lord with ALL my heart. Every last crevice and fiber, pushing the discouragement, worry, fear, angst, frustration–everything other than gratitude–away, choosing to praise.
And I will surround myself with people who do the same, because gratitude and praise is contagious. (v. 1b)
In fact, since gratitude and praise are contagious, I will determine all the more to cultivate a thankful heart, so that my words can build up and strengthen others.
When I am tempted to fret or fall into a rut of negative thinking, I will ponder the deeds of the Lord.
This week, I’ve been doing just that, and I’ve found, if I were to attempt to list all God has done, I’d never finish!
Perhaps that’s the point. 😉
Finally, as I’m contemplating the deeds of the Lord, I’ll pause to reflect on who He is, for everything He does, big and small, reveals His glory and majesty.
This week I challenge you to cultivate a thankful heart, pondering all God has done in your life, then consider what each deed reveals about God’s character. At our house, we’ve made a list. During dinner, we reflect on Psalm 111, sharing two things God has done–one from the past and one more recent–and then we discuss what this tells us about God. Through this, we’ve seen His incredible faithfulness, noting even our times of greatest struggle turned into wonderful blessings.
Because as Ephesians 4:6 says, God is over all and in all and living through all.
Let’s talk about this. How have you seen that to be true in your life? Pause to reflect on the past year. In what ways has God been faithful? How has He revealed His glory and majesty to you? Share your thoughts here in the comments below or at Living by Grace on Facebook.
Other resources, articles, or posts you might enjoy:
Are You a Complainer or a World Changer