Gifts Undeserved

Thanksgiving is quite possibly my favorite holiday of the year.  It's not that I don't love celebrating Christ and all He has done for me in December, but as a holiday Thanksgiving feels so pure somehow.  There is no shopping chaos...no financial woes...no insane schedules that sap the life right out of me.  The only list I have to make is the one I take to Kroger, and I don't expect anything from anyone in return for the turkey I will roast.  My family gathers together and we simply enjoy being together...and as long as there is pie, all is right with the world. 

I love that our country set aside a national holiday just to thank God for taking care of us.   Good thinking, forefathers!  :)

I'll never understand why some people have so much and others have so little.  I don't know why I was born in the USA and so many are born into utter poverty with little likelihood of ever escaping it.  Millions of people are born, live, and die without ever experiencing a fraction of the material blessings I have enjoyed...and far, far too many never experience the freedom or the hope found in knowing Jesus personally.

In America I am certainly not considered to be wealthy.  There are a lot of things that I would love to have and a few things that I need.  However, there is nothing I need that I cannot live without, and nothing I want that keeps me up at night. 

In most other parts of the world I would be considered wealthy.  I have a home to call my own.  I have locks on my doors and an innate feeling of security and safety.  I have never awakened at night afraid of anyone.  I have never had to scramble to protect myself from the rain, or the cold, or the heat.  I do not have to walk until my feet hurt to get water - and my water is always clean and safe.

If I don't feel well I can get into my little car, and approximately six minutes later I'm at my very own doctor's office.  I can see my doctor most any day of the week for just a $20 copay.  I might then need medication that is readily available at a myriad of  pharmacies near my home. 

Many, many people are never able see a doctor.  Many die from treatable illnesses because they have no access to routine antibiotics or other medications that are readily available to me.

I am never hungry.  I may slide a bit past a meal time every once in a while, but it's only a scheduling issue.  I will say this again so maybe I'll remember it for more than 3.7 seconds.  I am never hungry. 

I have lived 45 healthy years without ever being truly hungry. 

Thinking about it that way makes me want to cry.

Why do these realities not knock me to my knees in abject gratitude to the God who has shown me such generosity and mercy?  How can I go blindly through day, after day, after day just accepting all the wonderful things in my life...as my due?

Sometimes I wonder how God must feel as He watches my complacency and attitude of entitlement. 

How sad I must make him...

I try to be aware of the good things that God has given me and how He is working in my heart and my life, but honestly I fear most of the time I wander through my days completely inattentive to what God has done for me. 

I so want to do better.  

Would you pray with me that I will recognize, with ever-increasing clarity, how much I am given?  The more I realize how much God has blessed me, the more I realize I have no idea.

What a ridiculously fortunate dilemma.


Thank you, thank you, dear Father for taking such wonderful care of me all of my life.  Thank you for loving me even when I don't love you so well.  Thank you for gifting me with so much undeserved.  Thank you for sparing me what I do deserve.  I love you for who you are and am grateful for what you've done, and I would like to ask you to open my eyes to all that that includes.  I love you, Lord!


Thanks for letting me share my heart a little bit today - have a very happy Monday Y'all!
Renee

(A Thousand Gifts 118-129)