Grumbling or Gratitude...It's Up to You!

Have you ever spent an afternoon in the kitchen, dicing and slicing, peeling and pounding, grating and grinding...all in preparation of a wonderful family meal for the upcoming evening dinner. After all the hard work and slaving in the kitchen, you call your family into the dining room with that familiar greeting, "Come on everybody, supper's ready. Let's eat!" Slowly, but surely everyone takes their seat and you announce the bill of fare for the evening meal. But rather than hearing a plethora of "ooohhhs" and "aaahhs" about the wonderful meal you've prepared, you are met with moans and groans about "why are we having that, we wanted hot dogs."  It's enough to make you want to scream at the top of your lungs and send everybody to bed without any dinner.

But a closer look at this little microcosm of life shows us that we treat God the same way. Just look at the Scriptures starting with His chosen people, the Israelites. God has miraculously delivered them from their years of bondage, drowned Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea and has their leader Moses ready and willing to lead them into the Promised land. But in Exodus 16:2-3, we read, "The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt."

After all that God had done for His people, they chose to grumble about their plight rather than show gratitude for their provision...and the whole of the journey that lasted 40 years in the wilderness is one grumble and complaint after another. If not for the great love of God, surely He would have washed His hands of this whole relationship with the Israelites and left them to survive on their own.

Fortunately for you and me, our God is a God of compassion and does not measure His love for us on how much gratitude and love we show Him...if He did, we would ALWAYS end up with a HUGE debt that we could never repay. But I believe, personally, that God does restrain His hand of blessing when we fail to show the appropriate gratitude.

After all, would you keep showering your own children with more and more of the things they want or need if they NEVER showed gratitude but continually grumbled about what they did not have or how someone else has something better...I DON'T THINK SO!!!!

So why shouldn't our Heavenly Father treat us the same! Now, He has promised that He will always see that all our NEEDS ARE MET; however, giving us the desires of our heart comes from showing our gratitude ...and gratitude leads to obedience and through our obedience, God's storehouse of blessings is open for business.

A wise man of faith once said, "If you are on this side of the dirt and you have trusted in God's redemptive plan and your place in Heaven is secure, what could you possibly have to complain about?"

Dwell on that thought for a moment....how bad is your life, really? No matter what you are facing, the God of the universe cares and HE WILL PROVIDE...SO LIKE SO MANY OTHER THINGS IN LIFE, IT IS YOUR DECISION....

GRUMBLE    OR    GRATITUDE....what you decide will not affect God's love for you but it may very well affect how He provides!

Praising Him for His Provisions....Showing Gratitude with every Breath,

WPQ

Poem for the day:

Life can have its ups and downs

And make us want to fuss;

About the things we think we need

Or how others are treating us.

But God, He knows our every need

So when we choose to grumble;

Life's sky may darken, the rain comes down

And we heard God's Holy rumble.

By reminding us who's in control

As the dark clouds are swept away;

When we show Him our gratitude

His blessings are new each day!

WPQ @2017