Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.  James 1:17  HCSB

I have come to understand that God is good all the time and all the time God is good.  If you have watched the movie, God’s Not Dead, the two pastors say that to each other regularly.  I have also come to understand that when we live in the protection of God’s shelter that he works all things out for our good (Romans 8:28).  But I am ever mindful of even the littlest things that God does for me.  You see my mother lives with me and she has dementia.  For this reason, we cannot leave her alone.  God has blessed me with wonderful sitters for which I am so grateful.  Now that’s a really big thing.  But so often God helps me with the little things.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to take my mom to a doctor’s appt. in a nearby city that is a complete cluster at lunchtime.  Her appt. was for 1:00.  It normally takes 30 minutes to get to this city but we had to go across town at lunch time which can take an hour.  I wanted to leave an hour and a half early, but it doesn’t quite pan out that way, so we ended up leaving only an hour early which by my calculation would put us getting to the doctor’s office about 15-20 minutes late, but I prayed.  I asked God to guard our time and help us to get through which I anticipated being a traffic nightmare.  As I exited the ramp onto the highway which would bring me across town to the doctor’s office, I was amazed.  No traffic.  It was 12:30 which is the peak of their lunch rush hour and no traffic!  It was unreal!  We zipped across town and got there 10 minutes early!  God is so good!

Another example, I needed a few things from Walmart.  The Walmart pickup is obviously really popular because you almost always have to reserve a pick up time at least a day in advance.  But this morning I went online and they had a pick up time available for when a sitter was going to be with mom today!  Now how awesome is that?!  You see I have no sitter for tomorrow and we need things that will be running out in by then.  Now you may be reading this and thinking that I am one fry shy of a happy meal and I might just be, but one thing I want you to understand is that I trust in God for all things.  I give it all to Him the really big and the really small.

I have also learned to be grateful for every little thing.  I know that , as our scripture passage says, every good thing comes from God.  So I am grateful.

When we fail to acknowledge the true goodness of God then we open the door up for the devil to slip some pride in on us and we know that God hates pride.  So, I choose to live in gratitude.  I am certainly grateful for the biggest thing of all, that God sent his Son, Jesus to die on the cross so that I may have eternal life.  But I am also grateful for how he protects me and takes care of me even with the minor stuff.

We are now in the week of Thanksgiving.  Yesterday, my pastor used the phrase “Thanksliving”, so I must ask if you are living a life filled with gratitude or are you grumbling and complaining.  Believe me I have tried both, and the life of gratitude is so much better.

Think about it from God’s perspective.  Do you prefer to give a gift to the person that will open it and say, “Wow, I love it! Thank you so much! It’s just what! I always wanted!” or the person that looks at it, smiles a weak smile and tosses it aside?  I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to give the person that is grateful even more good stuff.  Hmm, maybe God thinks that way too!

God does good things for us big and small.  But sometimes we are so busy nitpicking about every little thing that goes wrong, that we forget to be thankful for every little thing that is gifted to us.  I hope that today you are fully aware of every little gift that God gives you on a daily basis.  I hope that you are living a life of gratitude not only for this Thanksgiving week but 365 days a year, 24/7.

I thank God for the biggest thing like Jesus dying on the cross.  I thank Him for the other big things like having wonderful sitters to allow me to do the things I need to do outside the home knowing that my mom is in loving hands.  I thank Him for a wonderful family.  I thank Him for the little things like making traffic light when I am running behind.  He is such an awesome God, we must never forget that He loves us and wants the best for us.  We must trust Him to know what is best for us and to give us that which is best!  Remember, he can see our future, he knows what we need.  We can’t and we don’t.

Have a great day!