This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada, and it reminded me of one of my favorite Paul Tripp quotes:
"Every day of your life you will find reasons to complain and every day of your life you will have reasons to be thankful." — Paul Tripp
Christians especially should be the most grateful people on the planet. We’ve been forgiven, freed, and wait for a future more glorious than anything we can imagine. We have a billion reasons to be thankful.
And God gave us every single one.
But too often we're ungrateful. We complain — about the weather, the temperature, the food, our families, our house, our bank accounts, our job.
The gifts God gives us become catalysts for complaint. He's provided for our needs, yet still, we can be abominably thankless.
So every day we face this choice: tune our hearts to worship or bitterness. We can make things about God or about us. That's what it comes down to. We can choose selflessness or selfishness. Joy or discontentment.
Often we think that it's all about feelings. If we don't feel grateful, we can't be. But feelings are fluctuating, vaporous things that can't always be trusted.
Gratitude is a discipline. We need to choose thankfulness. Fight for it. Even if we don't feel like it.
And that’s what we need more of in this world: people who are willing to fight for gratitude.