Kicked off the Thanksgiving week yesterday with a message to our church about gratitude. We dug through James 1.12-17 and explored this big idea.
If it's good, it's God!
I mentioned a metaphor that Wayne Muller develops in his book Sabbath. He compares consumers to hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts have huge tummies but tiny throats. As a result, they can never eat enough to satisfy their appetites.
Undisciplined desires cause so much suffering in life. Being constantly focused on what you don't have is a recipe for a life of ongoing disappointment. If we're not careful, we become slaves to our cravings.
The antidote is gratitude. Gratitude gets us off the cycle of destructive desire by getting our eyes away from what we don't have and onto what we do have--which is almost always way more than we realize!
So I gave our church two homework assignments for the holiday week. Why don't you do them with us?
- Memorize and practice Philippians 2.14: "Do everything without complaining." Four words. Easy to understand. Challenging to live out. But why not give it a try. Take a one week complaining fast.
- Make a list and write some notes: Write down ten things you're grateful for this week. When you're done, turn a few of them into thank you notes. Write a note to a parent, a mentor, a friend. You might even express your gratitude to God for the gifts He's given you.
two thumbs up, B.
Posted by: kim | November 23, 2009 at 05:55 PM