Thankfulness

God woke me up a few nights ago with instructions to write again. This time, about thankfulness. While I thought this was a rather unusual topic for this time of year, I must be obedient. His ways are higher than mine, so here goes.

Usually we take on a sense of thankfulness around holiday time, beginning before Thanksgiving and winding up after New Year's. It is easy to be thankful when you are prodded by Publix commercials and writing assignments for elementary school. A few years ago, we began the tradition of making a tree of thanksgiving, which is a large paper tree taped to the wall between our kitchen and dining room. I use a leaf punch, and punch out about a million little leaves it seems. We take turns writing things we are thankful for on each tiny leaf. It usually starts with the big ones, like our family, our church, our pastor, our home, but quickly evolves into things like our cats, toys, Dasani water, chocolate, etc.

What God placed in my heart this time is that we should be thankful for EVERYTHING. In His word he told us to be thankful on many occasions, in fact the entire 136 chapter of Psalms is about thanks. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 118:1 which says "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever." But what I felt God telling me to share is that we often thank Him for big things, like when someone is healed of an illness or comes through surgery or survives a car accident. But what about the little things? This is what He asked me........

When you shower and brush your teeth, do you ever thank Him for clean water?
When you cook a meal, instead of complaining that you have to cook, do you ever thank Him for the food?
When you get in the car to run countless errands and back out of the driveway, do you ever thank Him for your vehicle?
When you get dressed in the morning do you thank Him for clothes to wear and the means to wash and dry them?
When your child comes in and wakes you up early on a Saturday morning when You had really hoped to sleep in, do you thank Him for the gift He gave you in that child?

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. I know He made it clear to me.

In EVERYTHING.....give thanks. That's not just my words....read Ephesians 5:20.

Have a great day! And thank Him for it!