A Sacrifice of Thanks {Giving Thanks Even When You Don’t Feel It}

It’s another Monday morning and I awake to the messes.

Why is it that they never end?

The laundry begs my company. The beds are unmade. Clothes are strewn on the floor. The kids are still eating breakfast, and we are late starting our day. There are multitudes of messes, with toys strewn throughout the house, and the oldest coming to tattle on her brother already.

The day has only begun, yet there are messes all around me–messes I can see, and messes I feel inside. 

And in the moment of today, the choice is mine, always mine.

I can let my environment  and feelings control me.

I can let the to-do’s boss me around.

I can harp and nag about all that needs to be done,

And wonder why me?

I can pout and wish this house wasn’t so “lived in”, and that things were kept in their place.

I can feed to doubts of my own inadequacies and the impossibility I feel in being able to do it all.

Or … I can look for the gifts.

I can search hard to find thanks in this mess of a place–

And strain to give thanks amidst the mess of my heart.

I can choose to thank him for what is, instead of what’s not,

And I can change my view, shifting my vantage point to see this day with new eyes.

And I know from experience, if I do, I’ll be changed.

In most moments, thanks is a sacrifice—a risk. It’s looking hard to find what is. And in that process it transforms us and remakes us every.single.time.

Amidst your mess today–the mess of your house or the mess of your heart, will you join me?

Join me to search for the gifts, the thousands of gifts that never end.

And let’s offer thanks to our God, as our sacrifice. Because He is our help and He is good.

No matter the messes we’re facing…

He is our hope.

He is the one who can rescue us,

and deliver us all from all trouble.

He is the one who sustains our souls with His goodness,

and is the giver of all things.

Psalm 54:4, 6-7 (NASB)

Behold, God is my helper;

The Lord is the sustainer of my soul.

Willingly I will sacrifice to You;

I will give thanks to Your name, O LORD, for it is good.

For He has delivered me from all trouble…

 

So today, my friend, may you experience joy that is beyond your circumstances, as you choose to offer to Him a sacrifice of thanks.

Do you have moments where you don’t feel thankful?

What have you found today, that you can thank Him for anyway?

Continuing on, in the counting of One Thousand Gifts {#1311-1325} with Ann and this community, and the Joy Dare of 2012 with March’s  printable…

#1311 Healthy children who wear clothes

#1312 Jobs to have the money to buy clothes and laundry detergent

#1313 A house that has a heater to take the chill out of the air

#1314 Children who like to play with their toys

#1315 The privilege to be with my children and teach them each day

#1316 A fancy washer and dryer to use

#1317 Teaching them The Lord’s Prayer, and asking for our daily bread

#1318 Hot vanilla tea to sip

#1319 The freedom to read my Bible

#1320 David Nevue music, soothing and calm

#1321 A cell phone that is now working

#1322 A hard-working husband and father of our children

#1323 The opportunity to pour into a new premarital couple as they prepare for marriage

#1324 My oldest loving God, and using his talents to serve

#1325 Taking time to be still and know that He is God

Related posts:

Seeing the Gifts in the Mess To Grow is in the Dying For When You Need to Quit Performing to Earn God’s Love and Blessing :: Sermon on the Mount {Week 2}