The broadcast was with R.T. Kendall. He explained that he had a wake up call when he was preaching through the book of Philippians. When he got to the passage "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Philippians 4:6). He said he focused on "with thanksgiving" and was so convicted during his sermon, he prayed to be able to make it through the sermon. He couldn't wait for the service to be over to go and repent before the Lord.
He explained that when he finished his sermon, he went before the Lord and he spoke to him (not audibly) and reminded him one thing after another of what he should be thankful for and the Lord asked, "Are you thankful for that?" R.T. said, "yes" and the Lord said, "Well, you didn't tell me." He made a vow to the Lord that he would be a thankful person for the rest of his life.
How does one become a truly thankful person?
He said his way of becoming a thankful person was to keep a daily journal and each day he looks on the day before and thanks God for what He has done. Another thing that he and his wife started doing on each trip is to say out loud to each other what they were thankful for. They ended up saying over forty things they were thankful for just on the trip alone. That is praise and God loves our praise.
What keeps a person from being thankful?
We can sometimes simply forget. We know that God is all-knowing, so we can just assume that God knows that we are thankful. He enjoys our praise and wants us just to simply tell him thank you, even for the little things. We are made in His image and we know that we desire to be thanked for what we do for others. When someone tells us thank you for something that we do, we may say to them, "don't worry about it", but woe to the person who doesn't say thank you. God loves our thankfulness, and He commands us to do it.
There are some who don't just forget to be thankful, but simply aren't. Jesus tells of the ten lepers being healed and only one came back to say thank you. He asked where the other nine were, so we know that all throughout scripture, we are called to be thankful. One of the descriptions of the end times is ungratefulness and ingratitude. In Romans 1, God lists sexual immortality alongside of unthankfulness.
R.T. said that he holds the view that one of the reasons why America has been blessed is because of Thanksgiving, even though some just focus on turkey, football, and parades. Many will stop, even briefly, and be thankful. God loves it and honors it.
Other resources on making thankfulness a discipline:
Just Say Thanks by R.T. Kendall
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
How to Help Raise Grateful Kids
Here is a link to listen to the entire broadcast...I promise you won't regret it.
Being Thankful For God's Blessings
For me, this broadcast was convicting and thought provoking. I am thankful for many things, but I sometimes fall into the category of God knows I am thankful without speaking it to Him myself. I have a long way to go.
Is this not convicting??
This Thanksgiving, as I reflected over the last year, there are so many things that I need to say thank you for. I will not list them all here, but the thing that I am really thankful this year for is the arrival of Baby Lane. He is the baby that I didn't think we would get to have, so my heart is full of thankfulness for the birth of our third child. We are anxiously waiting for the middle of February. So, even though I am beginning to feel uncomfortable, feel as large as a house, and didn't get the girl I longed for, how dare I not be thankful for a child that I so desperately prayed for. I am thankful for the privilege to be a mother.
On Thanksgiving day, we decorated for Christmas. We didn't have a family meal, but the boys got together and played a football game.
Logan and Trent with the wishbone.
"In everything, give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:18
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