Oh, To Have A Grateful Heart!

Recently the Lord has really been reminding me again of all that He has blessed me with. I read Leslie Ludy's book, "The Lost Art of True Beauty" over my vacation last week and found it to be really good and very Christ-centered (as are all of the Ludy books). It was helpful for me at this time to be reminded of what really matters in this life and how important it is to be beautiful in God's eyes and to be completely consumed with only Him above all else- caught up in Him alone- living a life fully surrendered to Jesus Christ.
I really wanted to share this small section of the book that really spoke to my heart about having a heart of gratitude.
As you read this, I pray the Lord speaks to your heart as well about all that He has blessed you with. The most precious gift that He has given is the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ- and that alone should stop us in our tracks the moment we feel the temptation to grumble and complain about some earthly struggle or inconvenience.
Thank You Heavenly Father for the cross and for Your many blessings promised to us because of Jesus Christ. Every day is an opportunity to discover more of You!

Cultivating Gratitude from "The Lost Art of True Beauty" by Leslie Ludy:

"Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world." (Philippians 2:14,15)

And yet, how many of us think nothing of griping and complaining when things don't turn out exactly as we want? As Americans, we've been trained to "demand our rights." The message, "Get what you deserve! Fight for what you want! Have it your way!" is all around us. And all too often, we fall for it.
We believe we are entitled to comforts, security, money, popularity, and happiness, all the while forgetting we are utterly undeserving of even the very least of God's amazing blessings. Instead of being flooded with gratitude for everything He's done for us, we become sullen, depressed, or demanding when any of our "rights" are threatened. We are all too much like the nine healed lepers who never returned to give thanks to God:

When He saw them, He said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine- where are they?"Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" (Luke 17:14-18)

Like the nine ungrateful lepers, we take the benefits and blessings of Christ and then go our way, entirely forgetting that everything we have comes from Him, that we deserve nothing but death, yet He has given us life.
We must live each day in light of the cross. When we remember the unfathomable sacrifice our heroic Lord has made for us, we are far less apt to gripe, complain, whine, and demand. Rather, we live in humble awe of the incredible gift of what He has done. We shine with gratitude and thanks. We radiate with the beauty and jubilance of someone who's been given a second chance at life. Petty gripes and complaints no longer seem important in light of His immeasurable gift to us.