The halfbaked Bard

Ps:136:1 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1 Thess:5:18 Not just to give thanks. Not just to say thank you. But to be thankful. To mean every word of thanks which you say. In your inmost being to be grateful, no matter how grave the situation might look like. The Lord's blessing is always upon you. So be grateful to the Lord who sustains.  Concentrate on the be, not the do. 

Contrast between a man who was warned that he wouldn't be the one building a temple, vs the man who was promised since childhood that He is the one. The former was thankful. The latter was a smug. The former kept on doing for the temple, though it might have disheartened him, the latter was focused on other things as well. The former did not stop for rest. The latter because there was peace and rest, he pursued more things.  The former out of his nothingness pursued only God. The latter out of his surplous sought out very many other things as well. The former was called a man after God's own heart. The latter is said to have done evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the one who angered God. Being blessed, being provided, being in surplus brings us in that sad state of sufficiency, self satisfaction and complacency that we lose our focus on the Giver. Where as gratefulness makes us work harder, strive more because the focus is still on God's heart not in God's ha...

Jeroboam was unthankful and thankless; raised from commonhood into being king of the northern kingdom. From being a nobody, but prophesied and led to lead the nation Israel. All this happened, not because he claimed to be, Just like that, prophet Ahijah comes in and prophesies. But he chooses to do the wrong things - that he is thankless and unthankful and forgets God. Have I become  thankless? Did I forget from where I have been pulled from? Whatever I have been given, whatever I have been entrusted, it's all a gift, it's all grace. Did I forget and take things for granted and walked the way I wanted. Did I forget to humble myself and thank Him for what He has done for me? Or was I filled with pride, demanding the blessings (more of them) given to me, thinking that I deserve? Shame on me! Knowing me, who I was, who I had been! Did I deserve it? How deplorable of me to forget? Forgive me Father, for my unthankful attitude.

When Eliezer saw his simple prayer being answered, he doesn't reason it out to logic or chance. He simply thanks God and worships Him.  It so happened because - is probably the greatest enemy of Thank you Lord.  As intellectuals, it's difficult for us to believe that it is the Lord's doing. Doctors find it difficult to believe in divine healing. Students find it easier to push it to chance rather than blindly believe. That is why you are asked to have faith like a child. God values that so much. That is exactly why Jesus told Thomas - Blessed are those who believe without seeing me. John:20:29 Present day science also is thought to be contradistincting to faith. But it is actually the other way round. It was Louis Pasteur who said- The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God.  How much more God oriented I should be, in order to see the hand of God in everything. And if I am able to see His hands...