Be Thankful

It started a couple weeks ago, my friend shared a link with me to a sermon called, "be grateful". I listened to it, and I remember the conviction I felt at the time, I need to be more grateful for what I have. But in the past couple weeks I have determined two things that stand between me being ungrateful and grateful. One is control and two is planning. You put the two together and I'm in a world of hurt. I really do enjoy being in control, whether it is something small or big. Like driving a car, you can ask almost anyone that is close to me and they will say, she always offers to drives. And not only do I like to be in control, but I want to be the planner. I need it to make sense in my head so that when I begin the task, all I am doing is taking the next step...literally.

So what does this have to do with being grateful? Well a friend last night asked me, "So how is missions stuff coming?" I said I'm going to training in May and I really haven't thought about it much. For someone who craves control and planning, I feel as though God has intervened with this situation and has led me to not think about it a lot so that I can't come up with all these possibilities in my head about how I might control this and plan that. Instead, my thoughts when I think about missions and going to training in May and the steps that will follow after have been one's of thanks. I am thankful for how God is moving in my life and I am truly grateful to Him for the perfect plans that He has for me. Lately eternity has been on my mind and the thought my life is just a speck in eternity, one that God can see in completeness and at the same time is here with me this very moment, has put me at ease lately. God has it all worked out, and He wants me to be thankful to Him and abide in His will.

A quote from A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp (an amazing book I might add) says this about being thankful, "...and someday I will tell Shelly that life change comes when we receive life with thanks and ask for nothing to change" (pg 61). Control, planning, I love to do things my own way, I'm usually thanking God for who is and what He has done in my life and then tell Him all the reasons why I think this outcome would be great. That's why I say it has been a blessing that God has not had me thinking about missions lately because I could have come up with all these great ideas about how training will go, and time frames will be perfect for me, and money will fall from the sky and I will be doing exactly what I want to be doing where I want to be doing it and for how long I want to be doing whatever God has planned. That just makes no sense. I do want God's will to be my will, but I must relinquish control and the desire to plan.

So back to the quote, I want to be more grateful for what God has blessed me with. I want to be content with where God has me but be willing to move if that is what He wants. I want to be thankful during the waiting periods where I don't know what God is doing and I want to be able to rejoice in knowing that God is working, even though I don't see it. If change is to come, I want God to orchestrate that and me not to ask for it. I want to be appreciative of God and the many blessings He gives, even when I don't see it as such.