Do you ever find that the same message is coming to you over and over again from just about everywhere you turn?
I certainly do. Knowing that there is a God who orchestrates the affairs of our lives to place us exactly where we are in.every.way. in order to commune with us and transform us into His glorious nature is a mesmerizing, life-altering truth.
This golden thread is as much about the journey that we take as it is the truth itself.
A thankful heart {truly is} a happy heart. And a happy heart is a contented, peaceful heart.
And that thankfulness is all about perspective. And perspective takes work. Mental work. It comes through taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ and through dwelling on the good and lovely and praiseworthy and the constant renewal of our minds.
And the beauty, the true beauty, of the journey to this perspective is that it ONLY comes through the strength and power of a vital relationship with God.
If it was ‘easy’ to be thankful, or to always see the positive, where would we need God? Every other religion offers this man-made peace and happiness but without Jesus, so what is the difference for us?
The difference is that our happiness is not an end in itself but it is a means of our lives lifting up the One who will be praised for all eternity. It is also a journey and one that can only come from true humility and a depth of understanding of our own weakness.
This kind of thankfulness, of dwelling on the good and being at peace with our lives is so much more than positive thinking. Its limits are boundless. We receive the indwelling presence of Christ who leads the way through anything that comes. We receive in faith the truth of His conquering, victorious, resurrection power.
It is too amazing for us to comprehend the depths of love and submission to the will of God that were necessary for our Savior to leave His heavenly dwelling and come to live among us and drink the cup of punishment that sent Him to the depths of Hell. But it is enough for us to be awed and to worship and to claim the reality of His consummately full and eternal victory, not partial or temporary, but forever Redemption.
And when our lives are set on the backdrop of a perspective that trusts a good God who knows the end from the beginning, there is no potential for the dark plans of the Enemy to win in our lives. His schemes are rooted in the perspective of here and now and all that is dead, fallen and decaying. And when we embrace thoughts that say that the bad is winning or this negative circumstance has final and forever say, then we shut out the presence of God.
I stumble and fall and lose this perspective so much! But I praise God that His truth is powerful. It is much of the battle to know the truth that is deeper. To stake our hearts here and know well the retreat from the oft overwhelming here-and-now into eternal perspective that is a radical and victorious way of fighting for a thankful, peaceful and content heart.
As I see this golden thread woven into my own journey, I not only commune with the living God, but with those precious people in my life who are now Home forever. Like my Mama and her Mama, my Mor Mor, whose clear countenances in that great cloud of witnesses cheer me onward to Heaven where the blessed and peaceful life I taste in dimly reflected form here will brighten into the full blown colors of Eternity.
