Thanksgiving

In my Community Group on Wednesday night I asked our group two questions: 1) What are you thankful for? 2) How do you cultivate a thankful heart? What followed was a lively discussion. One of the things that I noticed was a common theme which seemed to be that it has only been on the other side of some very difficult things (a heart attack, a divorce, an addiction, or some other deep brokenness) that people actually began to develop the habit of thankfulness.Yes, I did say habit. Thanksgiving is truly a "habit of the heart." It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and also a "way of seeing the world" that is not instinctive or natural to any of us who inhabit a fallen world. The default mode of the heart is "my life for me." Therefore, most people never really develop a deep sense of thankfulness. If all of life is about you, you will have an aggrieved soul--people will always be letting you down, the place you live will never be very good, your job will not be very interesting, the people around you will bore you, and you will always think others have it better than you.But when you grasp deep thankfulness, you see everything differently, you take nothing for granted, you note the smallest kindness, you are amazed at the charity of others, you are lavish in your praise of others, you are quick to forgive, and not easily offended. Why? Paul said it best, "What do you have that you haven't received?"  When you know every good thing is a gift from God, you can't get very proud, nor do you take things for granted. Thankfulness starts in good theology--everything I have is a gift!What are you thankful for? I pray that each of us would cultivate a thankful heart. It really is a game changer for the way we live and see the world. You think about that.