…Thanks

11/28/2010. 11:15 AM

Today I realized thankfulness is about awareness.

I focus on awareness a bit, but it is only because as I take more leaps into maturity I realize how powerfully important it is to be present in our own lives instead of living an existence of never-ending walk-on roles into other lives, antagonizing them through our covetous attitudes born from what they have and we lack.

The more aware you are, the more you realize the strange, wonderful and miraculous feat of just being alive.

I am alive, so I need to be here.

As another Thanksgiving weekend comes to resolution, being here means being thankful.

In the Bible, Paul writes to the Corinthians explaining how their ministry  is “overflowing through many thanksgivings to God.” (II Cor. 9.12b)

Being thankful is not only gratitude for our abundance, but also fundamental in creating that abundance in the first place and increasing it.

This is not to say when we thank God He is prone to make more shiny things materialize in our laps. No, this is more about opportunity and that awareness thing I was harping on before.

When we are thankful for a job, our families, or even that chance to bless others-the ministry Paul speaks of-I think God sees that gratitude as yearning for more opportunity and He honors that.

Secondly thanksgiving increases our “harvest” through awareness. If you form the habit of taking a perpetual inventory of life and all that is in it, every time-at least in my experience- you will realize you had more than you thought.

Thanksgiving is not only an act of gratitude and worship to God, but a way to keep us grounded in the reality of our abundance.