Daily Encouragement: Day 250
From Handbook to Wisdom, Day 250
DEVELOP A SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING
I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
and I will glorify Your name forever.
For great is Your love toward me,
and You have delivered my soul
from the depths of the grave.
(Psalm 86:12–13)
Through Jesus, I will continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise,
that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.
(Hebrews 13:15)
A grandmother is on the beach with her only grandson. As she watches him playing in the surf, a huge wave comes up and carries him away. In a panic, she desperately pleads to God for his return: “Take me instead—he’s my whole life, my only reason for living. Do anything—just save him!” Miraculously, a second huge wave appears and deposits the child at her feet unharmed. She inspects him briefly, raises her hands toward heaven and loudly proclaims, “He had a hat!”
Nothing ages more quickly than gratitude. As we take the many blessings of our lives for granted, the grace of God degenerates into entitlement. As my friend Ed Dudley used to put it, if we were born on third base, we wake up believing we just hit a triple.
If we are wise, we will not leave gratitude to spontaneous moments, but cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving for all God has done in our past (Deuteronomy 8:2–3, 11–18), contentment with what He is doing in our present (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18), and joyful hope for what He has promised for our future in Christ (1 Peter 1:3–4; 5:10).