So... it's the morning after a joyous long weekend in the mountains. Quite literally, we've left the mountain-top experience and have slogged back down into the valley.
And here's the sad truth: I had forgotten all about God's astounding goodness, all about the innumerable answered prayers, all about His amazing grace, all about His glorious creation displayed continually before our eyes.
Nope, forgot about all of it and instead began to sport the old bad, ungrateful, frenzied but exhausted attitude of "Look at this messy house--how will I ever find time to get rid of all this clutter? How on earth am I going to plan a wedding? Where do we even start? And, mercy, where are some clean shorts for my son to wear to school? Why hasn't someone put out the recycle? What in thunderation is wrong with our email and how will we know anything about anything if we can't receive emails? And..."
Yeah, maybe you get the picture.
Too much to do... but too little energy and even desire.
Too much frustration...and too little joy.
Too much preoccupation with my circumstances... and too little praise of my Savior.
Too much me, myself and I... and too little Redeemer, Restorer, and Reviver.
Too much forgetting and too little remembering to give thanks!
O Lord Jesus how I praise You for lifting my head and raising my gaze--away from belly-button focusing and onto blessings You have showered upon us daily.
I just read, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Phil.4:6-7)
It's a choice--"Be anxious for nothing" (nothing includes not being anxious about finding a church for a wedding since our church meets at Broughton High School... and it includes computer/email glitches... and it includes finding my son's lost ipod touch that we put away and now can't remember where we hid it! Good night!)
And then it's a choice--pray about everything. Doesn't He who formed every single microscopic cell in the universe and who gave the dolphin perfect radar and who painted stripes on the zebra and who carved out the majestic mountains. also have the power and creativity to meet our needs--from trivial to trying? I'm thinking so.
But it's a choice to pray with thanksgiving. Good grief, how quickly I forget this. How easily we can slip into the "Poor me" or "Pouting me" or "Petrified me" or "Frustrated me."
Mark Buchanan writes: "All the wickedness in the world begins with an act of forgetting...The heart of wickedness and godlessness is that: a refusal to glorify God. It's the refusal to thank Him."
Wickedness isn't so much that drug dealer or that murderer or that boaster or that liar. Sure, that's horrific and that's sin, but wickedness begins with me, in me--in my ingratitude. In my refusal to give God thanks and instead revel in my worry or irritation or selfishness.
I love Ann Voskanp's prayer "Father God, You are the Begetter of grace. Forgive me for being a forgetter of thanks. This is no trivial thing. It leads to wicked things. Hear the cry of my heart: Forgive me for not giving You thanks. If thanks is the highest form of thought--make it my first thought. Turn me toward thanks first--so my life doesn't turn into the last thing I'd hoped for. Turn me towards You first--first things first means to give You thanks first."
And Joni Eareckson Tada says essentially the same thing--it all begins first thing in the morning. By setting our attitude for the day--away from ourselves and our selfishness and criticalness and ungratefulness and towards Jesus and His grace and goodness and power and provision.
It's about Him, not me. His grace and my gratitude. His power and provision and my prayer of dependence.
So... back to where I started, only now overflowing with gratitude towards my Savior, my Lifter-Upper of my gaze, my Giver of all good gifts, my Great Physician, my Creator, my Power, my Forgiver, my Finder and Revealer, my Sustainer, my Prayer-Answerer, my Sovereign, and my Lord.
He's got it all taken care of--from the lost ipod to the lousy email to the location of the wedding.. and everything else in between.
Lord, we thank You and praise You for all You've done..and all You're doing right now... and all You will be doing in the future, in our lives and in the world. Help us to trust You and to thank You even when we cannot see with our eyes... but we know with our faith. For You are forever worthy.
To God be the glory.
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