“This is a wonderful day! I’ve never seen this one before.
If we only experience “gratitude” when our circumstances are great and everything is comfortable, then, dare I say, that what we are experiencing then is not gratitude but selfishness. Our gratitude can not be determined by how well things are going. The true currency of gratitude is found even in the worst conditions.
Helen Keller, who lived without sight, hearing and speech, never found gratitude in comfort, she found it in her heart. Below is a poem that she wrote:
They took away what should have been my eyes
(But I remembered Milton’s Paradise)
They took away what should have been my ears
(Beethoven came and wiped away my tears)
They took away what should have been my tongue
(But I had talked to God when I was young)
He would not let them take away my soul—
Possessing that, I still possess the whole.
I am thankful for my amazing wife and boys, not only when they do things the way I like them to be done. I am thankful for my life, even when I don’t have all the things I’d like. You see, gratitude is nothing about the things I want, but everything about the things I need. The simple truth is that all I need is God. He is the One who gives life and takes it away. He tells me, “My grace is sufficient for you”. In other words, the fact that I am breathing and that He sent His Son to “stop breathing” so that I may choose to follow Him and have eternal life, is all I need. And if that is all I have, and everything else is stripped away, I should have an attitude of gratitude.
Until we get to a place we realise the truth of the cross, we will never truly be thankful and we will continue to participate in the rat race of life.
Thank you God for opening my eyes and my heart to what is really important. Help me Father to be grateful, no matter what my circumstances are.
Have an awesome day!
Mark Davidson
