thanks...for the thanks

In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others. ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's that time of the year when we seem to place special emphasis on giving thanks and enumerating the various things we are thankful for. It's somewhat of a lost art, really. To be really thankful and be satisfied with what we have and live a life of gratitude is a lofty goal. Our culture makes it difficult if not nearly impossible. It becomes a chore for many of us because we have become so self absorbed and cannot waste the extra minutes in our day to let someone know that their ordinary kindness is appreciated and recognized. Thanksgiving, the holiday, has become another commercially crass and mostly meaningless day dedicated to gluttony. The overall feeling is that it's just a day that stands in the way of “black Friday” and ultimately Christmas. However, I really have a quite different take on the whole idea of being thankful and showing gratitude. I am really thinking that Jesus was working very hard to show us how gratitude is this amazing tool that prepares us to receive God's goodness...or blessing. It lays the foundation for our hearts and minds to receive this promised abundance that is already ours. When we give thanks in advance this, in effect, readies us to be able to receive what we desire, a desire that is already fulfilled in the invisible realm. In Psalm 37:4 it says,

 “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” 

It enables within us a faith sufficient enough to make the seemingly impossible things possible. To live in the presence of that fact is to live a life filled with gratitude for even the simplest and seemingly inconsequential things. Dr. Michael E. McCullough, from the University of Miami, says. “It is part of a psychological system that causes people to raise their estimates of how much value they hold in the eyes of another person. Gratitude is what happens when someone does something that causes you to realize that you matter more to that person than you thought you did.” Don't kid yourself...we really want to matter...we want to be significant. Of course, certainly we all know and have been taught that gratitude is very important. It is the universal, across the world, custom of civilized and mannered people to say a simple and basic “thank you” after receiving something. Most of us are grateful when we are blessed in some manner, but that gratitude continues to be a response to getting something. It is still the effect...the afterthought. We wait until we think there is something to be grateful for before expressing our gratitude. In that waiting we are missing some tremendous opportunities to build our faith and that of others by living in a state of gratitude year round. We really need to abandon the mindset of waiting to receive and then give thanks. The surprising paradox is we are constantly receiving and for that I am most thankful...