Be Grateful! Today Is Especially Delicious
"Today is especially delicious." — Nacho Libre
Nacho is talking about food — but you can apply that attitude to life.
In spite of Thanksgiving being a favorite of many, we often don't "get it." It's all about gratitude.
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God's will (or a major part of it) is pretty simple. You get this one concept, then you are on your way.
The concept is...gratitude.
"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (I Thess 5.18).
See that "will of God" part there? It's like it came from an instruction manual or something.
Crazy.
Dennis Prager wrote the most insightful thing:
"There is a secret to happiness, and it is gratitude. All happy people are grateful, and ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that it is being unhappy that leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that is complaining that leads to people becoming unhappy. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person."
He speaks in terms of happiness – I'm going to speak in terms of joy – meaning the result of trusting the God who is over the circumstances.
All joyful people are grateful people. No exceptions.
You meet someone with a bounce in their step, a smile on their face, a cheer in their voice – you've just met someone who is grateful.
All ungrateful people...are joyless. No exceptions.
You meet someone who is bitter, hardened, down all the time (no joy) – you've just met someone who is ungrateful. Every. Single. Time.
Joy and gratitude – always, always, always together. Joy and ingratitude – cannot fit together in the same body. Ingratitude is like a pushy fat kid that forces joy out of your body. Joy and gratitude are polar opposites.
Want more joy? Easy. Practice gratitude.
"But David – gratitude is HAAARRRRDDDD!!" That's ridiculous. Here's me being ridiculous:
I remember trying to send a picture on my iPhone, and it wouldn't send.
It made me angry.
Embarrassingly angry. Like "poking the touch screen furiously trying to make it go" kind of angry (makes me laugh as I type it's so ridiculous).
Now really...how dim is that? I have a phone that transmits messages...like magic...through the air! No wires! No carrier pigeons! No note tied to a rock and thrown through a window like Ernest T. Bass! I just type words onto the magic mystical glass and my words fly...they fly through the air to another person who then reads my notes – sometimes half way around the world!
I'm like Aladdin with my magic lamp (only it's a phone), I personally know people in other parts of the world who walk a mile three times a day for water, but I'm incensed because I can't send a picture right at the moment I want to.
Silly.
Be thankful.
You have a brain, breath in your lungs, a beat in your heart. Today is especially delicious.
"Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (I Thess 5.18).
Originally posted at Like My Coffee Black
