Series: Choosing Gratitude

Hey Friends!  Guess what?  I caved and bought the book “Choosing Gratitude” by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.  It says “You’re journey to joy” on the cover, which at first glanced seemed a little cheesy and a bit self-help sounding, but this book is all about transformation from the heart level.  I have heard this woman speak, and I find her so refreshingly delightful and helpful!  She’s one of those women who I know is going to challenge me, and for some reason, I am up for (more like desperate for) her challenge of “choosing gratitude.”

In this season of my life, the Lord has been gently convicting me of a grumbling, complaining bent attitude.  And if I’m honest, this is the season of my life in which I have the LEAST to complain about!  Yet, daily I wake up to the war of Christ at work within me vs. my prideful, self-centered, and falsely entitled heart.  When one little thing doesn’t go my way, I can quickly act or think as though people or things owe me something and that there is nothing to be grateful for.  What a joke, huh?  Don’t I sound like real snob?  I confess… that…sometimes…ok a LOT of times… that’s what I really am!

I have been saved from the depths of Hell, yet when there are piles of dishes to do at midnight, I choose to grumble rather than rejoice for the food we got to eat, for the people we got to have over, for the running water, soap and sink we have.  I think its safe to say, I need a good smack in the face.  And, most likely, if you’re an American, you may need one too.  Not that I’m judging!  (But I am).

How can a girl who’s faced hardly any real suffering be so ungrateful? I am learning that without being proactive about seeing and acknowledging the blessings I have been given, without delighting in or at least trying to understand the command from God to “give thanks always,” I don’t stand a fat chance of living with real joy.  If I don’t fight and ask the holy spirit to do a mighty work in me, I am doomed to be stuck in patterns of entitlement, complaining, ungratefulness, bitterness, and half-hearted gratitude towards people and my loving father who has so graciously given me all things.

A lot of times in my past, I’ve read books like this purely through a self-righteous lens, meaning that as I’ve read “how to” advice, I’ve largely banked on my own personal strength and capability to “obey God.”    I’ve read books like these thinking, “Ok.  I’ll do these five steps today.  Then, everything will be better in my life.”  Well, that’s like saying “I think I can, I think I can,” when the honest truth is that I really can’t.  Without real heart transformation breathed by the Holy Spirit, books like these are just merely “behavior management,” which never has any lasting effects.

I could fake being grateful for the rest of my life, or I could wait on the Lord and trust Him to transform me into a radically grateful woman in the face of huge losses or serious suffering.  I don’t doubt this is not an overnight transformation, but more like a lifetime. One of my biggest prayers for 2010 is to trust the Lord to radically transform me into a grateful woman by the work of His holy spirit.  I use to try to muster up all my own strength in order for change to happen in my life, but I can confidently say that my strength far too often fails me.  To be a real grateful woman is something beyond myself, beyond my own willpower.  I need an intervention from God to be the kind of person who “chooses gratitude.”  Its just so much easier to complain!  Wouldn’t you agree?

So this time around, I’m completely dependent on God to help me.  Every step is His, not mine.  He has offered me a promise, and I am believing that He is really interested in the character of my heart and transforming my old ways of thinking into His ways of thinking.

If you’re reading this, would you mind offering up a prayer for me?  2 Cor. 9:8?  I’d be mighty blessed if you would!

2 Corinthians 9:8
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

He promises that He is able!  I’m real glad about that because I am not.

I’m half-way through this book, and the Lord has been faithful!  I can’t wait to tell you about the first week of reading the book and the few recent weeks in which God’s done a few 180’s on my heart.

So I’m finding out the universe doesn’t revolve around ME… and its strangely liberating.  And I have a ridiculous amount of things to be grateful for… you can only imagine how much repentance has come about from reading this book.  Gosh its good to be humbled and a little smacked in the face.

Thank you Nancy Leigh DeMoss for giving me a reality check and so much hope!