Better Than I Deserve

When someone asks you how you're going, and things are going well, what is your default answer? Fine? Good? Okay? Great? I know that is often my reply.

I've been reading a book lately, on the subject of gratitude, and it's importance in our lives. True gratitude is something that we all have to work on. Given what God has done for us and the salvation He so freely offers, and the eternal security we can have, our lives should overflow with gratitude.

But all too often, we choose to whine and not worship.

Everything we have comes from God

James 1:17

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The title of this post is actually an answer to my question at the start. How are you going? I read of a man, whose default answer to this question was,

“Better than I deserve”.

Gratitude is not just a reporter of details, but a revealer of the heart. If we got what we really deserved, we definitely wouldn't be 'fine'. But God, in is His great mercy, chooses to shower us with blessings, and so,

we get 'better than we deserve' every day.

God's grace is so abundant, that we often take things for granted. Little things, that if we were deprived of them, we'd be pretty miserable. There is so much to be thankful for, and yet, we neglect to give thanks to God.

There are so many passages of scripture related to giving thanks to God. The Psalms are full of praise to God. In 1 Chronicles, David instructs the Levites to stand every morning and evening to thank and praise the Lord. In the book of Daniel, we see him kneeling before God three times a day, giving thanks before God. The Bible is full of men and women worshipping and

 praising God and giving thanks.

I want my life to be a life of gratitude to God. A life of thankfulness. I have been convicted of my lack of thankfulness and my complaining spirit. When we sit down and seriously assess all the blessings in our lives, we find that there are so many and they are so numerous, that we are unable to write them all down, because our list would be never-ending. And not just physical blessings either. We have so many spiritual blessings as well. God's holiness. God's faithfulness. God's mercy. God's nearness. And the list goes on. And on. And on.

And so the challenge for us all, is to become more grateful. To worship and not whine. To make our default answer, “Better than I deserve”. God doesn't owe us anything, yet He chose to come down to earth and humble Himself and give His life so that we could experience life in Heaven with Him forever.

So, if we have salvation, we most definitely have better than we deserve. If we can think of nothing else to be thankful for, we have the greatest gift of all. Eternal security and a God who will never leave us or forsake us.

When thou hast thanked thy God

For every blessing sent,

What time will then remain

For murmurs or lament?

R.C.Trench