Thankfulness Is The Key To Contentment

I think Thankfulness – being thankful – is the key to contentment and peace.  The key to being contented with what you have and feeling a supernatural peace.  Not necessarily happiness or boisterous joy, however when I’m content and at peace, that feeling and state of mind sure beats being grumpy and feeling like there is no hope and complaining all the time.

Paul tells us in Philippians 4 that God will give us his Peace when we are thankful for everything.  Everything… that means being thankful for the things we aren’t thankful for too!  We should be thankful for our food on the table, for our clothing, and our shelter.  We should be thankful for our lives and the lives of our loved ones.  We should be thankful for all our material possessions, but we should also be thankful for what we don’t have!  We should be thankful for our parents who neglected us.  We should be thankful for those bullies in high school.  We should be thankful for the pain in our knee, and poor eyesight, and every other way in which the enemy, this world, and even our own flesh has and is making our lives difficult.

I believe we take away the enemy’s power over our lives – begin to unravel the enemy’s hold on us and our past – when we start to be thankful for all the things we aren’t thankful for.  I think it would frustrate the enemy to no end if the more he worked against us, the more we were thankful to God for it.  Living in peace and contentment, we would then be operating from a position of power – God’s power – instead of from our weakness.

I want you all to try being thankful – praying saying, “I am thankful for…” then fill in the blanks with both good and bad things.  Keep saying that prayer, over and over, everyday, until you run out of things that you’ve thought of to thank God for.  Then, begin everyday saying you are thankful for everything in your life – both good and bad again – just list everything you have and know!

And remember, God doesn’t give us certain things and even takes away things for our benefit.  Like Garth Brooks' song, “Unanswered Prayers,” he was glad that he didn’t end up marrying his high school sweetheart because the wife God did pick for him turned out to be way better 10 years down the road than his “sweetheart” would have been for him.  And we can be thankful for that too!  We can be thankful that we have a loving God-parent that cares enough to watch over us and watch out for us, keeping us on track when we can’t see the path for ourselves.

This idea of a God-parent reminds me of how my wife treats me sometimes.  It’s hard for me to give up control of anything, but when my wife suggests I do something or not do something, I try to obey because more often than not, she sees something or feels something isn’t right about it.  And, most of the time, I end up being better off if I take her counsel and wait.  Even if she’s not right, just the act of my submitting to her makes taking her advice a good and right thing to do, because it honors her, creates peace in our home, and honoring my wife gives me honor – it makes me a better husband (especially in her eyes).

In this way, submitting to her doesn’t make me less of a man, because I didn’t get my way, it makes me more of a man because I was gentle, stepped out of my own way, remained peaceful, and laid down my life – my wants and needs – for someone else.  Jesus says that is the highest love and honor someone can do for another.

So, everyone pray and be thankful!  Then, get back to me if you have discovered a contentment and peace from doing that!  Let me know if your life gets better, though nothing but your attitude has changed in it!  I want to know if I’m the only one.