Thankfulness: A Blessing For Your Life

From  Truth or Tradition Printer Friendly Version When I was a child, Mom and Dad made me and my siblings sit down after Christmas and write thank-you notes to all the people from whom we received presents (and don’t think for a minute that we would have done so had they not forced us to). Mom and Dad also made sure we said “Please” and “Thank you.” Years later, when I became a parent, I found myself doing the same thing for my children. Thankfulness does not come naturally. It needs to be trained in us. Our sinful nature, selfish and ungrateful, must be ruled by our will. If we are going to live godly lives, we have to first know what is right, and then make up our minds to do it. This is very true of making thankfulness a habit. In order to be thankful in our day-to-day lives, it helps to assess why we are so often unthankful. First, life is difficult and unpredictable because we live in this fallen world, in which the Devil has made it his personal aim to make people’s lives miserable. We too often have unrealistic expectations of how things are going to be, expecting things to go “right.” When they do not, we become exasperated and unthankful. Second, the world (especially advertising agencies) works very hard to create unthankfulness and dissatisfaction. What? Absolutely! No one who is satisfied with what they have replaces it, so advertising agencies work hard for their clients, convincing people that what they have is not good enough. This is not difficult to do in today’s world, when almost everything we use is being improved, remodeled, or updated at least once a year, and everything we wear is outdated before we know it. We learn about “better” products and naturally want them (and may even think we deserve them). No wonder we wrestle with being unthankful for what we have. Ah, to live in the “good old days,” when your great, great, great grandfather (or grandmother) wore the same kind of clothes you did, traveled around town by the same method (on foot with a staff for stabilization and protection), and cooked on the same kind of stove (a campfire). Then you could be thankful for what you have. Sound good? Only one problem—it’s a myth. Ancient people were no more thankful than modern ones. Life was difficult back then too, and people griped about it. That is why there are verses in the Old Testament telling people to give thanks to God. In fact, some 3,000 years ago people griped about life and talked about the “good old days.” Ecclesiastes 7:10a Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these…” Let’s face it, the only “good old days” were in the Garden of Eden, and since then life has been difficult, with plenty to be unthankful about. That is why we have to make up our minds to obey God and be thankful. Did I say, “obey God”? You bet I did, because God commands us to be thankful. Hey, that sounds like my parents—and it should. Good parents “stand in” for God until a child learns to obey the Word without parental enforcement. Scripture says, “…a child left to himself disgraces his mother” (Prov. 29:15b). 1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. The Greek verb that is translated “give thanks” in the above verse, eucharisteo, is in the imperative mood, which means it is a command. God does not “wish” that we would give thanks, He tells us to do so. We have the free will to disobey His command, of course, but not without consequences. Unthankfulness produces a host of physical and mental consequences. Furthermore, it makes us hard to live with. Few people enjoy spending much time with an unthankful, sourpuss person. Lastly, there will be consequences for unthankfulness at the Judgment, in terms of the rewards for obedience that we will miss out on. If life is so difficult, how can God command us to be thankful? The answer to that question is twofold. First, because although there is a lot in life we can be unthankful about if we so choose, there is also a lot for which we can be thankful. Second, because we can be thankful if we want to be. Many a parent has confronted an unthankful, sullen child, and said, “Go to your room and don’t come out until you change your attitude.” That is good parenting, because children, and the rest of us, need to learn that bad attitudes and unthankfulness are a choice. I am not speaking of the immediate emotional reaction to a tragedy, but if we have a continual negative and unthankful attitude about life, that is a choice. [1] The fact is, we can be thankful if we want to be. God commands us to take our thoughts captive to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. God has designed our thinking process to be subject to our will, but this is not such a popular subject today. We live in the generation of, “If it feels good, do it.” Slogans, songs, and countless “role models” encourage us to run our lives by our feelings. Thus we become unthankful because we are quite sure that we “deserve a break today” and did not get one. We wanted to “have it our way,” but that never materialized. But even without unrealistic expectations, the trials of life may produce feelings of unthankfulness—and the key to both obedience and a more blessed life is that we choose not to dwell on them. We can take our unthankful thoughts captive and say to ourselves: “I refuse to think like this. I am going to find something to be thankful for in this situation.” In fact, God commands us to think about “good” things.     The Rest HERE                                                ---------------------------------       I thought that I would just let this teaching speak for itself. I know that there has been many times in my life when I wasn't feeling to thankful for/about anything so I was certainly not thanking God for to much of anything.   It does seem to be hard to be thankful when it seems as if life is falling apart all around you.     I have figured out though, that being thankful in the most dire circumstances does have its rewards from God. You may not see it right when you want to,but, the rewards/blessings of being thankful will come forth at the right time.