Are You Guilty of Not Expressing 

Your Gratitude to the Lord?

 

It’s been a very busy past few weeks for our family, and there have been so many things I’ve needed to bring before the Lord in prayer. Day after day, new prayer requests have been added to my mental list and often it’s been a struggle to recall them all when I stop to pray. Some of them have been life-changing, huge, insurmountable prayers and others have been small and possibly unimportant in the scheme of things, but still something that’s been on my heart or mind.

I began thinking recently about my heart’s response to God’s answers to prayer. Am I truly thankful? Do I make a conscious effort to take time out of my day to thank God for what he has done and for the answers he has given? Does the gratitude that flows out of my mouth match the prayers that I lift up before the Lord? Or is there a great gulf between the two, so that the scales are precariously unbalanced?

In the past few weeks, there have been many answers to prayer, some large and some seemingly insignificant, but they’ve all been important enough for me to bring before the Lord. So, if they’re important enough for me to spend the time praying about them, then aren’t they significant enough for me to lift my heart in praise and worship and thankfulness to God when he gives the answers?

Often, I find myself praying hard for something, only to forget to give God thanks when he answers. I’m excited for the answered prayer, maybe even thankful in my heart, but I neglect to let praise flow from my lips, whether out loud or even just a prayer of thankfulness in my heart and mind.

God answers my prayer and I skip along, content with the blessing, forgetting all about thanking the blesser himself!

Taking time to praise the Lord in prayer is just as important as the asking. Maybe even more so. There are numerous verses in scripture on giving thanks.

Psalm 106:1 KJV - Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Ephesians 5:20 KJV - Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

Psalm 9:1 KJV - I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.

There is so much in the Bible on the subject of praise and thanksgiving. The words thanks and thanksgiving are mentioned just over 100 times alone, not to mention praise and praises. So, I think it’s safe to say that God sees thankfulness as something important and something we need to put into practice in our lives.

Do you know that the more you choose gratitude, the easier it gets? The more you express thankfulness, the more you notice things to be thankful for. The thankfulness muscle, for want of a better term, gets better with exercise!

If you spend a certain amount of time each day recalling God’s answers to prayer, noting them down and verbally thanking him, the more you will want to do it, then the easier it will become and the more you will have to be thankful for. As you begin to thank him for the big things, you will begin to notice the small things that you often take for granted, like a sunny day, a cloud passing overhead to give you shade, a bird song when you’re feeling sad, a warm cup of coffee on a winter’s day, a text from a friend just at the right time and so on.

I have felt convicted in recent days of my neglect in praising God in prayer. I have brought my many wants and needs to him, but I haven’t been so generous with my words of gratitude.

Despite my lack of praise, he continues to bless and provide. He loves me unconditionally and he keeps filling my cup to overflowing, but I have a lot more exercising of the thankfulness muscle to do. I would like gratitude to flow from my heart and mouth just as easily as the asking does. I would love for it to become second nature to me. Prayer and praise. Prayer and praise. Hand in hand.

Lord, forgive me for my unthankful spirit and my lack of gratitude. Help me to be made so aware of your answers to prayer that I can’t help but praise you for your goodness to me. Let my prayers of worship outnumber my prayers of asking.

Please Lord, “let the gratitude that flows out my life, 

be as abounding as the grace that flows into my life.”

 

1 Chronicles 16:34

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.

 

 

Change Your Attitude

Are you struggling with the circumstances you find yourself in at this particular point in time? Are you fighting against the God-given difficulties in your life and feeling like you’ve reached the end of your patience level?

I feel like I’m not the only one in this season at present. Maybe I’m a little more vocal about it and I harp on it a little more than others, but I know I’m not the only one that has found myself in circumstances beyond my control, waiting on the Lord, fidgeting and hopping from one foot to the other, battling the desire to take things into my own hands and see if I can figure it out, instead of patiently waiting for God to reveal himself and his will to me.

I came across a quote from one of my favourite authors today and decided it needed sharing.

“Usually, the only aspect we can change about our circumstances is our outlook. So, we must adjust our attitudes, alter our actions, and put on a cloak of contentment in order to weather life’s circumstantial storms” Karen Ehman

Some days, life is just plain hard. Days roll into weeks and weeks roll into months and we feel like the pain will never end, the struggle will never cease, and we lose our joy in the process.

But all too often, the only thing we can change is our outlook. When we’re facing difficult times and there’s nothing we can do with the strength we have and the resources at our disposal, we have to learn to take a step back and change our perspective.

It’s all about how we look at it. Kind of the glass half-full, glass half-empty scenario.

An attitude adjustment is what is needed, and I know, in my case, it is needed quite frequently. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, our mind and what we choose to think on plays a HUGE part in how we feel and how we act and how we react.

We have to consciously make a choice to take off the cloak of discontentment and misery, and grab the garment of contentment, (being satisfied to the point that we are no longer disturbed or disquieted in our souls), wrap it around us and choose joy, knowing that God is in control, and that he will do what is best, and despite the storm raging around us, he will bring the peace that we need.  

I could very well be preaching to the choir here, as the saying goes, but I know that this particular choir member needs this reminder today, and if I need it, then I’m sure someone else does too!

In the quote above, she mentions the need to alter our actions. Whatever it is that you need to do to make a change in your attitude, whatever action you need to take, it’s imperative that you do it!

So many positive inspirational speeches you hear will tell you that you can control your destiny, or that you have the power to change your circumstances or that if you believe it, you can achieve it. SPOILER ALERT! They’ve got it all wrong. Most of the time you can’t, and you won’t and you shouldn’t!

There is no miracle three-step method on making the annoying things in our lives go away. Changing our circumstances rarely changes us. What transforms us in an attitude shift.

God chooses what we go through, we choose how we go through it. We have to choose to realign our attitudes with the truth of the Scripture.

Well, that’s all fine and good but how do I go about it?

I think the first thing to remember is that God is God, and you are not! He doesn’t think like we do, and he doesn’t act like we do. He is altogether righteous and holy, and we are not!

Isaiah 55:8-9  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The second thing we need to remember and put into practice, is to pray. Pray about it. Bring it to the Lord. He is the one that will lead us through, and he is the one who hears and answers our prayers.

And thirdly, do what you can, and don’t do what you can’t. I know, not very profound, is it? But sometimes it’s the simple way of doing things that make all the difference.

Carefully and prayerfully, do what you can and leave God the rest. Don’t stress about all you can’t do and the things beyond your control. God is big enough to handle it. If after praying and seeking Godly counsel, you feel an action needs to be taken, then do it. But don’t waste all your energies and brainpower on the things you can’t change. Drop it and move on, seeking the Lord as you go.

Boy, am I preaching to myself right now. I know that if my husband was reading this, he’d be saying, “that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you all along!” Sometimes I have to write it out so I can visibly see it before it truly sinks in!

Join me in learning this little, but difficult, lesson. Change your attitude and let God work on the circumstances. Do a 180 in your outlook and focus on maintaining a vertical gaze instead of a horizontal one. Get your eyes off the problems and choose to look to God.

 

“Learn to glance at things, and gaze at God!”

 

Micah 7:7

Therefore I will look unto the LORD; 

I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

 

 

 

 

Trust in the Blesser Himself

“Instead of a river, God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dried up tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to rest in our blessings, but in the blesser Himself.”  Arthur Pink

How often do you find yourself longing for rivers of blessings and yet all you see are brooks that are dried up or only slightly wet from a trickle of water that slowly winds its way over the dirt and rocks?

I have found myself in past weeks, going back and forth from blessing to burden, burden to blessing and back again. Back and forth, back and forth.

One day, my prayers are answered, and the blessings come and the hope within me rises, and then, not only 24 hours later, down it all comes, and the burdens press in once more. Questions arise and fear wells up inside.

What do you do when it seems that God keeps giving you little glimpses of hope only to seemingly dash them just as you begin to rise from the ashes?

Well, you know what they say about riding a horse. When it bucks you off, you don’t give up, you get right back up there, settle into the saddle, feet in the stirrups and try again.

And so, when God gives and then takes away, you don’t jump off and quit trusting. No. You get right back to where you left off and keep trusting. Keep hoping. Keep believing.

You remind yourself of past victories and the blessings God has sent your way and the good he has done in your life. You remember the times he brought you through the deep waters and the raging storms. You focus on his goodness and what you know of him. You hold to the promises found in his Word. You pray, you wait, and you rest.

God does choose to give us blessings one day, rivers flowing and abounding with water, and he chooses to cause the river to dry up and the soil to cry out for thirst. Why? To cause us to trust him. To draw us closer to him. To teach us not to trust in the blessings only, but in him, the blesser and giver of all good things.

To our human reasoning, it seems counterintuitive. It doesn’t seem to make sense that he would withhold blessing from us, in order for us to love him more. But God, in all his wisdom, sees further than we ever can, and he knows that this is the path to growth.

It’s so easy to cling to the blessings and neglect the giver. When things are easy, the burdens are light, the days are bright and sunshiny, we can fall into the habit of walking in our own strength, content to run things our own way, blissfully unaware of who is giving us the very air we breathe.

But when the darkness falls, we suddenly realise our weakness and how small we really are, and we cry out for help longing for those bright blessing days to return.

God longs for us to cling to him through the day and also through the night. Not just on the hard days, but on those wonderful carefree days too. He desires worship and to hear praise on our lips, and words of thankfulness from our mouths. He wants us to be reminded of who he is and his faithfulness.

And so, he sends those dry times. He lets the soil be parched at times. He allows us to go through difficult seasons, longing for us to draw closer to him and cling to him. He knows that it’s at these times we need him most and it’s through the trials he sends that we learn more of his character and we see his love all the more clearly.

It is at these times, we begin searching his word in earnest, longing to read the precious promises of comfort we find there, and seeking the rest and peace only he can bring. We find ourselves in prayer more often and longing for his fellowship.

If we only had light, we wouldn’t understand the blessing of a rainbow after a storm. If all we had were easy, happy and carefree days, we wouldn’t know of the power of God and his ability to raise the fallen, strengthen the weary and lift the burdened and overwhelmed. We wouldn’t experience the exhilaration of the sun breaking through the clouds after torrential rain and boisterous thunder.

God knows exactly what we need, and he knows just when we need it. The blessings he sends and the trials he allows in our lives are not just an accident. They are carefully planned and orchestrated by the creator of heaven and earth, the Redeemer of our souls.

Although it may seem that at times, God is far away and silent, turning a deaf ear to our pleas, it is far from the truth. He is always near and always watching and leading and guiding, waiting for us to turn to him. It is not him that has moved, but us.

We are the guilty party. We are the ones who neglect to give honour to the blesser. We are the ones that cling to the blessing and neglect the giver.

Let’s not be guilty of only resting in our blessings. Let us rest during our trials too. Clinging to the one who brings peace and comfort. Let us be like the tree planted by the water that is so rooted in God and so content in his workings, that we don’t fear the drought, we’re not afraid of the heat and the pressures that come, because our faith is in the Lord and we know he will bring beauty from ashes and our leaf will stay green and our fruit will keep bearing, showing to all that God is good and he can be trusted.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.