Thankful Hearts

Last night Emery and I sat out on the porch watching a storm in the east. Although the storm never arrived at our place we did get a good light show from the lightening and we were blessed by a cool breeze which gave way to thoughts about the first family to live in this house, imagining them on such a night. We imagined that they would have gone to bed with a prayer of thankfulness on their lips for a breeze. We have lost something in this modern time, true dependence on God for all our needs. Oh yes, we still need Him, but mostly to give us strength to endure the stress of modern life or perhaps to fix the fragmented relationships that we have become part of. Most of us have no reason to ask God to provide us with food, or rain for our crops, or for a cool breeze so we can get some sleep. When Emery and I were first married, we were poor as church mice and there were times we did have to pray for the basics, and our faith was strong and there was never any doubt that God existed, we KNEW He did. In the land of plenty, for many it seems you go through the motions when saying Grace at meal time. You thank God for your food, but you never gave it a thought when you went to the store, took out the money and paid for all those bags of groceries. You may pray at night and thank God for a good day, but two minutes later, your mind is racing with thoughts of that show you watched on TV or that new gadget you just purchased. So many have found themselves in a situation where it seems like all the good stuff in their life comes from the stores, and problems solved in relationships has come from self help books or what you heard on an afternoon television show, not from dependence on God. Perhaps that's why there is such a huge following to the idea that we are not only formed in God's image, but we are all God-Like and we create by our thoughts and our actions. God gets less and less attention unless of course we are in some sort of serious mess and then, like my father was fond of saying...."there are no atheists in a foxhole."

I can't help but wonder if the times we are living in, isn't full of the tree we should not be eating from, just like Adam and Eve. Too much ease of living, too much of the "doing it myself" mindset that leaves us less thankful to God and less in need of Him for the most basic of things. I know I am guilty of this. I was pretty taken with the concept of the "Law of Attraction" and now to be honest, I am pretty sure this is just one more ploy to take us away from the need of God in our lives. I want to be more thankful to God for everything, not just for what hits the top ten scale in miraculous. I want to be thankful for cool breezes on a hot summer night, not just say, "ah, isn't that nice", and then just walk through the door into my air conditioned house without one bit of sincere, mindful gratitude.

I see now that we have a hardship in this life, to realize that God is still at the helm, and to have thankful hearts to Him for all we have and for all that we no longer even have to think about.

There are still many who do understand and are thankful for all things from God, but for many today, we just accept so many good things as just part of modern living and go day to day without feeling deeply in our hearts, the watchcare of God in our lives.