It’s a cold morning in Belvedere, Kent (don’t bother cracking your head where that is). I woke up this morning with a heart of gratitude to God. It’s the last day of the year 2006. Looking back in retrospect, it has been a great but challenging year. I am sure the story will not be too different for most of you reading this article.
On a positive note, I am alive! There is great hope for the future. I have hope that things that didn’t work this year will do next year. I had planned a vacation with my family outside of my home country and here I am enjoying a great vacation with them. My beautiful daughter was 1 and God helped us make some great investments in the course of the year. Most importantly, we have been a source of blessing to several people in the course of the year, in more ways than one. This morning, I choose to count my blessings! In the words of a wise man, “When you learn to think, you will learn to thank”
I must confess however that everything didn’t go as planned. We had very tough moments. There was a career move I was supposed to make (we had prayed and believed God for it) that didn’t pull through. I had planned all my year around that move and it was really devastating when it didn’t pull through. Some other things just didn’t work! I have a choice to discount my blessings! I have a choice to complain and murmur and dwell on the things that didn’t work. I am sure you have this choice too. What would you rather do….count your blessings or discount them?
My advice to you is obviously to count them. While writing on the “Power of Your Attitude”, I said something about the greatest of all attitudes. It is an attitude of gratitude. In the words of Zig Ziglar “Of all the "attitudes" we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing” An attitude of gratitude qualifies you for greater blessings. Be grateful for things you have and God will be compelled to give you what you don’t have. Thank him for today and he will guarantee your tomorrow.
Never take God for granted! If you do, you’ll soon be grounded! Appreciate him for the little things. You are alive. You can walk. You have a job. You have a family! Thank him for all those and believe him to turn other things around. An apostle of old has this advice for us all “ Even though the fig trees have no blossoms and there are no grapes in the vine; even though the olive crop fails and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the field and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the Lord God of my salvation”.
As the year winds up today, may I encourage you once again to count your blessings? May I encourage you to have an attitude of gratitude? May I encourage you to be thankful? When you praise Him today, He will raise you tomorrow!
You should not only show gratitude to God. You should show gratitude to all those who have contributed in one way or the other to your year. Let them know they did. Send a thank you note. Send a small gift to appreciate a particular favour. Be thankful.
See you in 2007!
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3 comments:
True, planning for the year ahead shouldn't deter us from giving thanks to the one who gave us the opportunity of seeing the year end and who saw us through too.
Fola'
True, planning for the year ahead shouldn't deter us from giving thanks to the one who gave us the opportunity of seeing the year end and who saw us through too.
Fola'
Good stuff here, my friend. It's a great way to end the year, and it's interesting that we are thinking alike.
The year ahead holds lot of promise. It is a year in which we'll manifest.
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