Day 3931 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Peter 4:3 NIV

Gratitude

The same should be our attitude within every day we’re given, or at the very least within the vast majority thereof. And this is something we’re all reminded of within holidays such this we celebrate today in which we’re all but forced to stop our general continuation of what’s become a life of all but increasing consternation. Indeed, this day in which we’re encouraged unto the giving of thanks shouldn’t be something so set aside for such a once-a-year tradition in which we, for a mere 24 hours (or however many thereof for which we’re awake before the turkey kicks in), are reminded of how blessed we truly are.

But alas it seems that we’ve rather grown confident that our blessed assurances come only inside those entirely rare days in which every little thing goes our way and brings us all we wish to delight within as it unfolds.

And this has left us all growing quite cold alongside a world doing vastly the same. I honestly for the life of me cannot recall a time in which daily life just felt this sort of agony and angst, both inspiring a sense of anger so very deep that it seems that everyone is all but forced to wear it daily upon their faces found in the form of frowns sat below the oddly askew crowns perched atop their heads as worn in remembrance of all the good times they’d managed to find, but only in apparently days gone so far by that their general sorrow seems as if they believe the same days again they’ll never know.

All we seem to know anymore is just disgruntlement. Life here has dissolved in an embattlement as is fought daily between both everyone, this much is clear to see, but also even inside ourselves. And this is something that I say with as much shamed humility as I might. And that’s because it’s in every way a battle I seem to fight almost every day. For I seem to know always that just right way to find that something wrong in my life that just isn’t going right.

I mean, be it the dogs barking for no good reason as I try to write these posts every morning mixed with the fact that they do so while the rest of my family is sleeping or the neighbors that don’t wave anymore as you drive past them or the mailman who looks like he’d rather punch you in the face than say hello or the lady at the store that grabbed the last package of toilet paper or the guy at work that keeps talking about the bender he went on last weekend or the boss you think is a jerk because he actually expects you to work, or whatever the case may be, it just seems to me that we all find so many things every single day that offer to alter our course from happiness to an almost palpable hatred of potentially even life itself.

But the problem has become that we almost seem as if we delight to play along.

Because more often than not we do. And again, I say this as guilty as anyone else. Just ask my family and they’ll tell you that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve in at least some ways gotten colder. I don’t laugh as much as I used to. I don’t lighten up nearly as much as I once did. In fact, they’ll tell you that there are some things in my life that I take so seriously that I seem almost willing to throw hands should someone even pretend they’re of any plan to alter my own.

And I think that in many ways all of us could say the same. And that’s because of all we seem to assume we know, what we seem to believe we know best of all is this idea that we alone can somehow both determine what it means for our lives to go just right and also, from there, all but dictate their progression so as to ensure that all but everything lines up just right so as to help us to arrive at that place in which we’d planned to find our every hope and peace and joy and whatever other preference we may well have so misconstrued that we’d not find them no matter what happened or what we do.

Simply because when it’s so left to us to ensure that life unfolds just right, all we can ever really find is a steaming pile of greasy disappointment thanks to a list of expectations that no life could ever measure up to finding or proving or being or becoming.

Indeed, all of us have cooked up these ideals for our lives that have rendered this real deal we’re living all but increasingly incapable of ever being seen as anywhere close to good enough.

And it’s gotten so bad that some of us, and a growing many there indeed quite sadly be, have all but written off the ability to be happy in life simply because we happen to be found within a world that’s chosen similarly. All because we seem to have become so fascinated by this idea that our lives are to both look like those of those living around us, and thus to become only as sad and begrudged as most lives seem to be anymore, that we thus have almost found this daily expectation, if not excitement, at our own general sadness and begrudgement.

It’s literally gotten to the point in which it does truly seem as if we almost like it!

But for the life of me I don’t know why. And again, I say this as a guy who does the same thing way too much of the time. For daily it seems as though I find myself catching myself so upset and angered by even the smallest of inconveniences or disappointments or simple misunderstandings. Daily I seem to find some way to stumble into a disapproval of something I see or happen to hear. I am all the time adding onto this ever-growing list of things I hate and wish not to replicate.

And I do it most of the time because I do happen to find that the saddened, and thus quite saddening, state of the world around us has found us a growing display of so much of what is proving to almost every single day be that very same everything we should never agree to become. We are surrounded if not bombarded by things that simply shouldn’t be happening.

But alas, we’ve become a world vastly void of love and even emptying of simple respect. That for one another, obviously, but also even for ourselves.

And I think that might well be right where this problem begins.

For let’s think about it for a second or two. If we reach the point in our lives, in our minds in which we no longer delight to find that general responsibility to live upright and reasonable lives to be something worthy of upholding and adhering to, well then what do we honestly expect to happen? I mean, if we reach the point, in which we have, in which folks basically just stop caring about even trying to be decent human beings, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s all downhill from there.

Just go to Walmart and you’ll see what I mean.

But friends, what we seem to have lost or forgotten or somehow set aside is this fact which tells us that just because we’re surrounded by something, that doesn’t mean we have to give up and go along. Just because we see or hear something on a daily basis doesn’t give us the right to assume we should just dissolve into repeating or mimicking the same. Just because this world seems intent to be so unhappy that some are inching toward that final break in which they start physically harming those around them, well that clearly doesn’t mean that we should follow them.

So then why do we?

Why do we all but daily allow for anger to override the opportunity for joy? Why do we all the time let disappointment speak louder than contentment? Why do we go about daily with this altogether stoic, if not creepy, appearance of gloom and disgust upon our faces?

Why do we seem to want the world to assume we’re miserable?

If not because we’ve become so very used to living to please people that we anymore only delight to do as most do and thus find ourselves basking in the same sort of battle-hardened exterior that we think the world wants to see?

Why does this world take so much pride in everyone looking like they’ve just come from a fight in which they got beat and battered so badly that everyone else is best off leaving them alone?

What good can come from our going around acting as if life is so very bad that we’d all but be happier if we were just already dead?

Friends, what’s so bad about this life that we’ve all but forgotten how to be thankful?

Sure, life here is by no means perfect. In some ways life here is all but pathetic, at least in terms of how we’ve come to live it. But honestly, do the various hardships we face and the struggles they bring along with them truly have then the right to always just kick joy off the stage? Do disappointments or disagreements really deserve to send our day in a darkened direction? Should we be as quick as we are to accept every invitation to every argument or debate into which we’re asked?

Should we honestly be able to see only so much of all that’s bad?

The Bible tells us that unto the pure all things are pure but that to those who are corrupted nothing then can be. And granted, I think it’s obvious that all of us exist somewhere on that spectrum between for none of us are fully pure and yet none of us are the very worst either. And so this does seem to kind of say that we’re all bound to see this life in a slightly different sort of way. And that seems to say that we’re all going to have different perspectives and points of view that thus form for us differing priorities and thus differed pursuits.

But can none of them be for anything happy?

Can none of us manage to find anything good in life?

Is there truly nothing in this world for which we could be thankful, should be grateful?

Has gratitude truly become such a foreign attitude that we may simply have no idea remaining as to how it feels or where to find it?

Judging from the state of the world and the looks sat upon the faces of those sharing it with us, yeah, it seems that thankfulness is something of an alien venture only ventured toward by at best kids and a few grown-ups who never grew up. Because let’s be honest, the only ones among us who seem anywhere close to anything happy anymore are the youngest or those deemed weirdest.

And that because the rest of us don’t seem to have any memory of what it’s like to actually be happy.

Rather we’ve all been so angry for so long now that life itself has all but become something of a daily killing field in which we enter with fists clenched and teeth bare just daring someone to say something to us so that we can rip their heads off and let go some pent-up steam in the process.

Indeed, it’s like we’re all just about to blow!

But why?

Again, I’ll definitely not pretend that life here is perfect as there are things going on and thus maybe happening to us that simply shouldn’t be possible. But friends, I think the issue is that victim’s mentality we’ve all all but settled for in which we so easily see everything that’s happening as something probably going against us. And when everything in life is seen as something going against you, it’s only a matter of time before you inevitably give up and just stop trying to find happiness or joy or peace or contentment.

After all, why keep looking for what’s so stinking hard to find?

But that’s just it. Why are such things as happiness, as peace, as contentment and thankfulness so very hard to find?

Is it not because we’ve become far too accustomed to assuming them only present in those moments in which life goes perfect? Is it not because we think they’re hidden in those hard to reach and easy to forget places that just take too much work to get to? Is it not because we’ve all but confined them to finding them, feeling them only when everything is going right, and that in a world that’s all but adamant upon doing wrong?

Is it not because we’ve forgotten that we can even rejoice in suffering?

And is that not because we seem to have forgotten the reason for His suffering?

You see, somewhere along the way we seem to have gotten this idea in mind that has us believing that God exists to make our lives easy. That He’s up there only to ensure that we get everything we want and thus get to avoid everything we don’t. That Jesus died to free us from the consequences of our collective decision to live a life of depravity and disillusionment.

He didn’t.

He died to set us from the ultimate penalty that all sin owes. But He did not die so that we could live a life never having to experience again the folly of a fallen man.

And that’s because despite His having died once for all, not all will accept that gift. And even those who do, well, we’re all still prone to mess up and do things or say things or think things that we shouldn’t.

We are all imperfect, and yet that seems to be the nail in the very coffin of happiness and gratitude unto a people who think such things can only be found when life is perfect.

We’re setting ourselves up to be miserable all while thinking it’s what we should be doing simply because the rest of the world is so clearly doing the same. But friends, since when were we called to do as the Romans do? I mean, we love to toss that idea around all the time it seems. And indeed, we do even seem to quite enjoy just doing whatever everyone around has chosen to. After all, that makes life far easier, that approach in which we just follow the lead of another.

But even then, why not follow the lead of He who scorned shame, who rejoiced in His suffering, who surrendered unto the just will of God even though it clearly wasn’t justly deserved by Him? Jesus died for the sins of others, paying the ultimate price for a debt He did not owe. And He did it all in order that we could all find in Him a peace and joy that surpass all understanding.

And yet from where we’re currently standing, all we keep on seeing is just a people more unhappy every single day.

Is that who He calls us to be? Is that who we want to be?

If we look around and see a world that just looks so miserable, why then would we continue to live like they do?

Is misery what we want? Do we truly enjoy being upset? Can anger accomplish much good for us? Some, sure. But does it lead us to such things as peace?

No, peace is found in one place, and no, it’s not in a perfect life lived free from hardship, pain or worry.

Peace is found in Christ, and in case you forgot, and judging from the world, we have, His life here wasn’t what we’d call perfect. Rather He endured hardship, He felt pain, He experienced persecution at the very hands of those He died to save. He hung in both agony and shame so as to accomplish the perfect will of God that was always intended to overcome our living of vastly imperfect lives.

Why then do we anymore still resort to anger or doubt or disappointment when some of the road toward Heaven proves less than our version of ideal?

Because yeah, life sucks sometimes. We get dumped. We lose jobs. We feel pain. We make mistakes. We walk alongside a world that pretends nothing good ever happens. It all just adds up to a general estimation of a life void of anything even decent.

But friends, is that really the case? Have we truly nothing to be thankful for? Are we indeed unable to be grateful? Can we only be grateful or thankful for the moments which are easy, good, safe, comfortable? Might we be far better at being grateful, and thus perhaps closer to finding peace, were we of the ability to see opportunity to rejoice even when things make it hard?

Is that not kind of the point?

That we’re supposed to make a point to rejoice, to be happy, to be thankful? That we’re responsible to seek for those things that offer us opportunities to grow closer to Christ, even if those things mean our truly sharing in His suffering? That we thus shouldn’t get so upset whenever life is hard but rather rejoice that God apparently sees in us an ability to endure it?

Should we thus not be as thankful for the hard days as we are the clear skies?

Friends, if our gratitude in life is always left to be defined by what we go through, then I’m afraid we’ll not find much in life to be thankful for. But if our joy is truly stored in Heaven and we’re truly thankful to have that hope of being there one day, then should we not be grateful for whatever helps us get closer?

And can’t we see that there’s not much that helps us grow closer to Christ than living a life that’s sometimes miserable?

After all, what better way to finally start seeking Him than when we’re so down and out that we’ve finally nowhere else to turn?

My point is that no, life will never be perfect and will in fact probably be pretty tough as we go along in what is a world going the other way. Trust me, it’s in every way a daily misery watching the general decay of society. I hate it, and that’s because I know it doesn’t have to be this way. But friends, it is this way. We can either give up and accept defeat and find in that little if anything to rejoice over or we can hold fast to our faith and look inside everything that happens for that chance to move one step closer to Jesus because of it.

None of it will be easy, but again, God isn’t there to make our lives easy. He’s there to help us become more like Christ. And well, again, Jesus endured more suffering here than any of us can fathom. Let us then stop whining when we’re called to share the side of Him we don’t enjoy enduring and rather see this life’s suffering for what it always was:

Ending.

Yes, let us be thankful to experience our misery now rather than later. For while hardship and hatred and depravity and darkness and noise and nonsense may not be fun now, they’ll all suck far worse if found forever. Thankfully we who are in Christ haven’t to worry about that.

So why worry about them now either?

No, let come what God has determined is needed for your growth in Christ and learn to see suffering as thus only something of an evidence that He’s not done with us.

And who knows but that if we can learn to rejoice in sharing in His suffering, well, we just might happen unto a life lived with so much to be thankful for that we need way more than one yearly Thanksgiving.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold