A ‘Time’ To Be Thankful?

Aren’t we funny? We love to be thanked, but we often forget to thank others and most importantly thank God! Maybe it is because we have been extremely blessed, so much that we just assume things should take place. I will be the first to admit that I am terrible and writing ‘Thank-You’ notes! Bless my wife’s heart, she has been the ‘half’ of us that takes that responsibility on. I don’t necessarily think of it as ingratitude, but that is mostly because I justify my life in areas like this. (Did I actually admit that in print? Opps!) I often tell you all, that I am not the best example for many things unless your looking for – ‘how not to do it’ principles. I don’t want that to keep me from improving and changing to be better. (After all that, is the way dead people act!)
Maybe the problem is that I have had such a blessed life that I forget what it is to be in need. Sure I grew up without a father in the house, but I had an extremely giving mother who made up for the difference. Life as I knew it was normal. We weren’t rich by the world’s standards, but we didn’t know it! My mother didn’t focus on what we didn’t have, but who we did have – an incredible-loving, heavenly Father! We didn’t focus on being poor and unable to have everything we wanted, but we focused on the great gifts we received from God through HIS people – an incredible home church that centered on the incredible-loving, heavenly Father. We didn’t focus on having medical bills, and monthly bills that we couldn’t afford to pay, but we focused on Jehovah-Jireh, an incredible providing God who provided through HIS people – an incredible body of Christ who lived in light of the incredible-loving, heavenly Father! (Whew! That’s a mouth full!)
I guess the truth is that every time you read ‘we’ in the paragraph above it should really read ‘she’ - my mother. While the rest of the ‘we’ took for granted at times the incredible pursuit that the incredible God was in to show us how much HE loved us and cared for us! Wow, when you stop to pay attention to the past you begin to understand that thankfulness is really about a daily encounter with a HOLY GOD who is active year round. This same God who says in HIS word (specifically found in 2 Thessalonians 5:18) “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” I know the original language doesn’t have punctuation, but we put a period at the end of that (and I agree with that.) But I think we think it needs an exclamation point because most often we only are thankful when it is something HUGE. And HUGE needs an exclamation point!
Does this possibly mean that we are living outside of God’s will? Well that is what Paul said. God’s will is that I am thankful. When I focus on God and HIS will for my life, a natural by-product is thankfulness. So let us be people who focus on God and HIS will. Thankfulness (that means me, too!) is not just a November thing, but daily duty. God says so!