Have you ever felt extremely overwhelmed? Overwhelmed to the point that you are exhausted and broken down? Life sometimes does that....bears down on us to the point of brokenness. This week, I have felt that overwhelming weight. I have found myself at times sitting still, without words and just tears. Sometimes it takes that brokenness to bring us to Him, to look up, and to let go of our pride and be thankful.
Thankfulness....you know, that thing we focus on around Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving only. Have you ever realized that we often forget to be thankful year round. No, I'm not talking about the "thank you" when someone says they hope you have a good day. Not the "thank you" when you are handed the salt and pepper at the dinner table. I'm talking about the deep down "thank you"....the one from your heart, the one you can hardly verbally speak because of the overflow of emotion with it. The thankfulness that we should have daily for the gift God gave for me....and for you.
"Christian hands never clasp
and He doesn't give gifts for gain
because a gift can never stop being a gift--
it is always meant to be given."
That gift God gave on the cross through His son, that gift of grace, hope, and salvation, is a gift we are to share with others. It is also a gift we are to give back to Him who it originated from. Spending that precious time in pure humility before Him, thanking Him for everything, literally everything. Isn't this what life is about? Worship? Worship through constant communion and thankfulness.
"When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone--the bones, they sing joy, and the work returns to its purest state: eucharisteo (thankfulness). The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness."
When we are going about life, working and thinking nothing of where we are and who we are around, how can we effectively be the hands and feet? How can we take time to thank Him if we don't even know what has happened daily to thank Him for? What if all through life we failed to watch for those blessings? Wouldn't we be failing to admire God's perfection in Creation? We would fail to see God's perfect timing. We would miss those opportunities to see beauty in the sun and the storms. What if we were too busy to tell someone we loved them? Without thankfulness to Him who gave us the ability to live, we cannot show that joy He supplies. We must be thankful in order to share why we are thankful.
I have been making my way through life, facing it one day at a time, and trying to look upward. I have been learning that gazing upward opens our hearts to thanksgiving. Looking upward takes away fear, because ultimately, there is no fear with Him. Looking upward eliminates the stresses of here. Looking upward brings an overflowing of joy and hope! So with all this looking upward...life couldn't possibly be hard right? WRONG! I'm not anywhere near perfect, so I fail daily to constantly look up. It's in those times I take my eyes off of Him, even just a moment, that I struggle. But it's also in those times, that if I can just breathe a few gifts of gratitude, He takes that and breathes life into me. It's in these moments that the weight of the world gets a little lighter. And one by one, uttering gifts of thanks, He removes those burdens that are holding me down. It's during our times of thankfulness, that all else is forgotten. Because we cannot be thankful, yet hold those negative thoughts captive at the exact same time. Thankfulness trumps all else, just as light trumps darkness. Your heavenly gaze will trump that of which you see here on Earth. And in light of thankfulness, those worries don't matter. So fix your eyes on Him, that upward gaze, and give thanks for everything! For as much breath as you have, give the gift of thanks back to Him. After all, His sacrifice deserves so much more than a basic, insincere "thanks". So go, give gifts of thanks, and look up my friends!
Thankfulness....you know, that thing we focus on around Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving only. Have you ever realized that we often forget to be thankful year round. No, I'm not talking about the "thank you" when someone says they hope you have a good day. Not the "thank you" when you are handed the salt and pepper at the dinner table. I'm talking about the deep down "thank you"....the one from your heart, the one you can hardly verbally speak because of the overflow of emotion with it. The thankfulness that we should have daily for the gift God gave for me....and for you.
"Christian hands never clasp
and He doesn't give gifts for gain
because a gift can never stop being a gift--
it is always meant to be given."
That gift God gave on the cross through His son, that gift of grace, hope, and salvation, is a gift we are to share with others. It is also a gift we are to give back to Him who it originated from. Spending that precious time in pure humility before Him, thanking Him for everything, literally everything. Isn't this what life is about? Worship? Worship through constant communion and thankfulness.
"When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone--the bones, they sing joy, and the work returns to its purest state: eucharisteo (thankfulness). The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness."
When we are going about life, working and thinking nothing of where we are and who we are around, how can we effectively be the hands and feet? How can we take time to thank Him if we don't even know what has happened daily to thank Him for? What if all through life we failed to watch for those blessings? Wouldn't we be failing to admire God's perfection in Creation? We would fail to see God's perfect timing. We would miss those opportunities to see beauty in the sun and the storms. What if we were too busy to tell someone we loved them? Without thankfulness to Him who gave us the ability to live, we cannot show that joy He supplies. We must be thankful in order to share why we are thankful.
I have been making my way through life, facing it one day at a time, and trying to look upward. I have been learning that gazing upward opens our hearts to thanksgiving. Looking upward takes away fear, because ultimately, there is no fear with Him. Looking upward eliminates the stresses of here. Looking upward brings an overflowing of joy and hope! So with all this looking upward...life couldn't possibly be hard right? WRONG! I'm not anywhere near perfect, so I fail daily to constantly look up. It's in those times I take my eyes off of Him, even just a moment, that I struggle. But it's also in those times, that if I can just breathe a few gifts of gratitude, He takes that and breathes life into me. It's in these moments that the weight of the world gets a little lighter. And one by one, uttering gifts of thanks, He removes those burdens that are holding me down. It's during our times of thankfulness, that all else is forgotten. Because we cannot be thankful, yet hold those negative thoughts captive at the exact same time. Thankfulness trumps all else, just as light trumps darkness. Your heavenly gaze will trump that of which you see here on Earth. And in light of thankfulness, those worries don't matter. So fix your eyes on Him, that upward gaze, and give thanks for everything! For as much breath as you have, give the gift of thanks back to Him. After all, His sacrifice deserves so much more than a basic, insincere "thanks". So go, give gifts of thanks, and look up my friends!