The Bullet of Joy: Gratitude
Maintaining a sense of joy and well-being is dependent on one attitude … gratefulness! You can never be joyous unless you have a sense of gratitude! A thankful heart for all the good, not a selfish mind set on your disappointments, is the key to joy!
Most of us expect too much that isn’t really essential to true living. When we don’t receive what we think we deserve we lose joy. The truth is that we deserve nothing from God! The way most of us treat God is ample proof that He is under no obligation to provide all or any of our wants! Most of what we want is for ourselves and not others anyway! This is not the example of Jesus!
True joy comes when we are grateful for possessing what we know we don’t deserve or could have lost! For instance, falling in love with the right person always has both partners feeling unworthy of the other’s love. Gratitude for someone’s love brings fantastic joy! Again, joy is greatest for the athlete when he is grateful for winning, knowing that he came close to losing. And, again, receiving the news that you’ve won a new car in a contest is a perfect example that joy is born from gratitude.
William Secker put it well when he said, “He enjoys much who is thankful for little things: a grateful mind is both a great and happy mind.”
Show me a joyless person and you can be sure he or she is not grateful for the real and lasting gifts of life! A griping, grumbling Christian declares to all that there is no gratitude in his heart for Jesus Christ!
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