Let me let you in on what happened a week prior. I was waiting for my daughter to finish her fitness class as sunlight streamed in through the car window. I sat in the warm car sipping my delicious iced coffee. I opened my laptop and mind to work on blog content. My thoughts felt bigger and more grand than usual and I was only drinking decaf coffee. It was like I was seeing in 4D when usually I see 2D or at best 3D. I quickly started jotting down a list of good things that surround us on a daily basis. An impact was setting in. I put myself in multiple friend’s shoes and looking through their eyes as best as I could to what good things they were enjoying. I’ve been practicing the habit of gratitude for a number of years but something deeper was transpiring. My eyes widened with awe as I wrote this down:

 “In an instant, we can be in touch with people thousands of miles away, have clean laundry and dishes without effort, acquire food cooked and uncooked, have automation do the heavy lifting, learn thousands of things with the click of a button, have access to medicines for any host of ailments, influence hundreds, thousands, or millions on a myriad of social media platforms, turn on music or educational podcasts to fill our minds with truth and knowledge, close our eyes and listen to the Bible being read in a host of languages, we can have AI prepare a speech, content, or even a liturgy, we can meet with people virtually to workout, receive counseling, or attend a business meeting, order a product to arrive by “next day” or sooner, have our very lives completely sustained by medical equipment, obtain a new heart, lung, or knee.  What I’ve listed here aren’t even a fraction of the goodness that our century holds. What new breakthroughs, discoveries, solutions, and opportunities will there be in 10, 20, or 30 years?” 

 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17

 Could it be? My mind widened at the thought of all these things being gifts. Through the lens of love I realized we are sitting on a gold mine. A wild thought entered my mind, “Never in the history of mankind has unmerited favor been more on display than now.” Is it true? I wondered as my theology collided with my reason. Could it be that all of these modern conveniences, technological advancements, and breakthroughs are a wild portion of His love story with us? Sure, I had thanked God for my washing machine but the gravity of it all hadn’t hit me like it was just now. In my mind growing up, advancement was seen as a means to the “end of the world.” Abundance was cast into the lot of sus “prosperity gospelers” who’d traded the noblest calling of “humble impoverishment” for the riches of doom. “We are not a part of this world” was our mantra. I most certainly didn’t see the “worldy treasures” as something to “give thanks in all things for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  

 Let me restate, never has there been in the history of mankind an age where unmerited favor has been more on display through increase and opportunity. To be crystal clear, I’m not saying there is MORE grace now than in previous centuries but what I am saying is when you get into His perspective, when we see all good things and perfect things as coming from the hand of God we move the needle from indifference and suspicion to gratitude. When we view all things as gifts from His loving heart. 

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things. Rom. 8:32

God created the whole earth with the capacity for increase and called it good. When gratitude marks our lives we will live with eyes open with ready hearts to rule well the responsibilities that God has given full of gratitude for all the tools He’s provided to complete those tasks. Gratitude enables us to see the hand of God guiding our lives; it strengthens our will to keep His commandments. It fills us with deep settled rest of His obvious foreordained love.

Problems arise when we start to view ourselves as owners of these things. As owners we shift into a mentality of entitlement, which is what we are seeing in seething fits around us. Let’s go way back, do you remember what bothered God about the children of Israel?  It wasn’t the children of Israel’s tunic length or adornment (and they had gold aplenty) that bothered Him- it was their persistent forgetfulness that all things came from Him. They turned aside to other gods. They turned what God had blessed them with into a thing to worship. They forgot to “praise God from whom all blessings flow.” They missed recognition thus missing gratitude.

Today we have a choice at this precipice. Martin Luther King so rightly stated this concerning recognition and responsibilty:  “Not environment; not heredity; but personal response is the final determining factor in our lives. And herein lies our area of responsibility.” Growing up my perspective about advancement, technology, and this busy new age fostered a deep negative perspective that couldn’t give thanks if it tried because to admit thanks was to endorse the bad that happen through these gifts. When I viewed advancement and abundance as the enemy I shifted that needle off gratitude.

Our human nature tends to blame everything and everyone for our lack of gratitude. But what if the things we thought were the problem actually aren’t. It isn’t technology. It isn’t this “new age.” It isn’t busyness. It isn’t about putting up more fences, barriers, or having more rules. It’s us! We are back to the heart of the matter. Consider what happens when we claim that advancement and abundance are the cause of ingratitude and self-centeredness, we shift blame just as Adam, Eve, and the snake did. If only we didn’t have to eat manna everyday or have better leaders. If I could have less or more of something I would feel grateful. It’s not that there isn’t enough to be grateful for, no rather, it is because we choose negative complaining, pessimistic perspectives boasting about our grip on “reality”, and ultimately deciding that we know best about how the world should operate.

All these gifts come with a decision as does everything Christ has done for us. A very personal decision that I will be making everyday. The generational mark I want to leave is gratitude. Others going on before me have chosen this less traveled path and the wisdom I see from their lives has left its mark on me. You and I could see gratitude become the mark of our generation. Will you advocate, practice, and ask Jesus to shift your eyes. Will you step up and allow God’s perspective to arrest your perspective?