Ten years ago, I injured my knee. I had to have surgery to repair the injury. Following the surgery, I went through a few months of physical therapy. As I was undergoing physical therapy, I was a bit unsteady on my feet.
During one of the therapy sessions, my therapist asked me to stand up to complete the next portion of my session. Before I stood to my feet, the physical therapist said, “When you stand up, I want you to pause for a moment to gain your bearings.” His instruction became something I do each morning to help me gain my spiritual bearings before I stand up and face my day.
For the last ten years, since that moment in my physical therapy, when I roll out of bed, I pause for a moment before standing to my feet and utter these words, “Thank you, Lord.” I do this each morning as the first act of my daily spiritual therapy, even on days when my calendar is filled with things that can produce worry and concern or when I do something later in the day that was unknown to me at the moment of my waking that will not honor the Lord.
I give thanks to the Lord in the dark hours of the early morning before any resolution of my issues takes place. Those words are my daily spiritual therapy, which puts my life in perspective, knowing that only the Lord can resolve some of the problems I will face. Being thankful opens the door for God’s resolution and provision.
Paul wrote, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus” (I Thessalonians 5:18). The single word “all” leaves nothing out. Everything we will face during our day, the worries about the condition of the world, our failures, or someone’s betrayal, are all to be thankful for, not for the personal pain and concern that they produce, but for the Lord’s revelation of Himself in the process.
A life of thankfulness is God’s will for our lives. Without a heart of thankfulness, we will live a life of despair instead of living a life of hope that a thankful heart creates.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Garris Elkins
Featured Image by Kati from Pixabay
