Category: Cuppa

Today I am giving thanks. Real heartfelt thanks (which is what I should give to God everyday) derived from the reminder of a National holiday. I have a mixed bag of circumstances, and that has seemed the rule for me, rather than the exception; but whatever our circumstances, whether we are without a job, under financial strain, struggling with family breakups, isolated and overlooked, however challenging some of those circumstances seem, one thing is constant. God is always worthy of our thanks and praise.

You Lost Me

If that statement lost you, you will never find the key to turning around your situations in life. If you believe that the momentary difficulties you face or the disappointments in your life are the only defining factor of your emotions, efforts, and mental outlook, then you have little hope of stepping into a different road. You sit in your blockaded path, or as that famous little book,”Who Moved My Cheese?” puts it:

Old cheese is old behavior.
What we really need to let go is the behavior that is the cause of a bad relationship, and move on with a better way of thinking and acting. The New Cheese is a new relationship with the same person.
Repeating the same behavior will just get you the same results.

What does that have to do with thanking God? When we get angry that God isn’t giving us the usual amount of cheese in the place we are used to getting it, we want to blame him and sit there angrily. When we really should be thankful that we get any cheese in the first place, and start using our senses ( given that we come to them) to find a new course, and new place- or new situation. Giving thanks to God for what you have now, and what you have had previously sets you up in a position to move forward, to understand that your best ally in a life worth living is the God who made you. That is hard to do if you don’t believe God is good, and that He loves you. But “counting your many blessings”, is one of the most powerful ways to get out of the funk you are in, and come to the realization that there is so much that is good; the good simply being eclipsed by your momentary barriers, disappointments, and losses.

This can be perceived as a gimmick or as a principle, but being grateful is one of the best alternatives to being stuck in life. I can’t quantify how much a mental attitude impacts the arrangement of conditions in our lives, or what we as individuals can do with those, but there is enough evidence that people often make their own reality by the choices that they make with their attitudes.

OK, What’s God Got To Do With It?

At some point, it will be apparent that it isn’t all about you. For many, that is where an effort is made to blame someone. Anyone else, but ourselves; although some of us sit blaming ourselves. The trouble being that this never gets us anywhere different. Which is the whole problem. That someone else is going to make a difference for us getting beyond our present situation. The “No man is an island” idea lights up for us. It isn’t that only others are somehow responsible, and thus to blame, but the dawn of the idea that we are synergistically combined in our ability to help or hinder one another.

Some are willing to get to this conclusion and gratefully recognize the help and influence of others. But eventually, if we pursue the stream to its source, we will find something, Someone, greater, to whom we owe thanks. And if we discover the source of our “cheese” supply, perhaps we will also discover the help we need for turning our difficult circumstance around. Perhaps we come to realize that it is more about the whole of life than the finding of the “cheese”.

Giving thanks today is more than an expected exercise. It is more than indulging ourselves in our good fortune, and more than a temporary reprieve from the negatives in our lives. Giving thanks is the pathway to opening ourselves to new understanding of the good resources of our lives, the good we have enjoyed, and the goodness that is yet to be discovered in life. It is also the entry into the courts of God, if we wish to find something more than the futile cycles of our own machinations. Giving thanks can do more than turn circumstances or our attitudes around; it can turn our whole selves around. To face what direction? The God who loves us.

See if it isn’t so, for you, too. Giving thanks is a beneficial action. It will be beneficial to the extent it is implemented. Give thanks and see your mental outlook change; give thanks for people in your life, and see your relationships change…if only in how you relate to others; give thanks for all the things that you previously took for granted, as a habit of your character, and see if it does not lead you into a place of greater spiritual insight. Just see.

Today

So, today I am deeply thankful. My troubles haven’t changed through this, but I have, and I know that this is the best hope of something different for tomorrow.

I can see how good God has been to me, and it gives not only comfort, but hope for better things to come.

And I appreciate those who have been a part of my life, have done me good turns, who have highlighted where I need to change, and who are instrumental in whatever way to making my life an experience. I am thankful for the experience. God bless you all who are a part of that.