A Thankful Heart is a Happy Heart

(I am thankful for the rain and how it cools everything off... Even if it floods like crazy! Haha) 

I've been thinking a lot about thankfulness over the past week or so. What I think it incredible is that something so simple could be so powerful. 

I looked up the word "thanksgiving" in a concordance and there were a whole pile of verses, but these were some of the ones that stood out to me: 

Ephesians 5:4, "Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving."

Philippians 4:6, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

Colossians 2:6-7, "Therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving."

It is clear that living with a thankful heart is very important. It's important in what we say, and in how we pray and in how we walk as a Christian. I think it's safe to say that in everything that we do, whether word, thought or deed, we should do so out of thanksgiving. When we give thanks to God, we put our attention on God and all that He has done for us and is doing for us. It helps to give us a right perspective. Once we start looking for what we can be thankful for, we start to see more of how God is providing for us in the day to day things. Things that if we're not looking for them, can be easily over looked. 

I also looked up the word "thanks" in the concordance and was given many reasons throughout the Bible to give thanks to God. Here are a few: 

1 Chronicles 16:34, "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!"

1 Corinthians 15:57, "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Ephesians 5:20, "Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"

Colossians 3:17, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Sometimes I catch my thoughts drifting to worries or to things that have made me upset and it is so easy to just sit in that place. But what lifts our eyes from our inconvenient or uncomfortable situation is thankfulness. Fixing our eyes on Jesus with a thankful heart produces in us joy. That's what I want in my heart! Joy in abundance.