Vital signs- Sunday, October 16th, 2022

Attitude of Gratitude

As a child, I can remember sitting at the kitchen table writing out Christmas thank you cards to our relatives. I always enjoyed receiving gifts, but writing out cards was not a joyful task for me. Like most young boys, I preferred to play rather than sit and put my thoughts to paper. 

Taking the time to express gratitude should not have been a difficult task, but my attitude turned something that should have been a joyful response into an obligation or duty. When we allow ungratefulness or entitlement to creep in, we rob ourselves of the joy that comes from a life filled with thankfulness. When gratitude becomes a task rather than a joyful expression, we likely have a hardened heart. 

In this Psalm, we are warned not to harden our hearts as the Israelites did. We often think of a hard-hearted person as someone who doesn't want to respond to God. However, the hard-heart the Psalmist speaks about is the person who forgets to acknowledge God's goodness in their life. To harden our hearts is to continue in our lives without stopping to recognize the one who has blessed us. 

Has your attitude been causing gratitude to be a duty rather than a joyful response? Pray and ask God to remove any negative thought patterns in your life that hinder you from being thankful. 

“O come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with a song of thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with songs. For the Lord is a great God And a great King above all gods, In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for He made it [by His command]; And His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and prayer]. For He is our God And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts and become spiritually dull as at Meribah [the place of strife], And as at Massah [the place of testing] in the wilderness, “When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, even though they had seen My work [of miracles]. For forty years I was grieved and disgusted with that generation, And I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart, And they do not acknowledge or regard My ways.’ Therefore I swore [an oath] in My wrath, ‘They absolutely shall not enter My rest [the land of promise].’ ””

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭95‬:‭1‬-‭11‬ ‭AMP‬‬