Gratitude

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity ...It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." --Melodie Beattie


I heard a message today about how when we really comprehend God's grace and love in our lives we will live lives of gratitude to Him and that gratitude spills over and looks like generosity. I can see that at points in my life but it is not a consistent attitude for me and oh how I desire it!


Sometimes I am overcome with the sense of God's grace in my life and other times I find myself striving to do right and "working" to please God. I desire my devotion to come out of my love relationship with God. Recently I heard a message by Francis Chan and began reading his book, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. My heart resonated with his message about a life overtaken by God's inexpressible, incomprehensible, all powerful and earth shattering love.


Here are a few quotes from the book:

"Having faith often means doing what other see as crazy. Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers."

"Over time I realized that when we love God, we naturally run to Him--frequently and zealously...The results are intimate prayer and study of His Word. Our motivation changes from guilt to love."

"Don't we live instead as though God is created for us, to do our bidding, to bless us and take care of our loved ones?....He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving...we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us...could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you and explanation?"

"The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him--and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by."

Many Spirit-filled authors have exhausted the thesaurus in order to describe God with the glory He deserves. His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words cannot contain Him. Isn't it a comfort to worship a god we cannot exaggerate?"