Imagine this…

Your friend, Scott, walks in and hands you a wrapped package. Upon opening it, you discover a shirt. It’s your favorite color and fits you perfectly. You’re thrilled! As you look up to express your thankfulness, your attention is diverted to five other friends, screaming with happiness because Scott just gifted each of them with a $500 gift card to the mall.

Your shirt doesn’t look as awesome as it did two minutes ago, now does it? 

Here’s Why You Can’t Give Thanks…

Every time you receive a gift and respond with complaints instead of thankfulness, you can be sure of this:
you decided your gift isn’t as good as someone else’s. 

You look around to see what other people received.
You want something else. Something bigger. Something better.
You don’t consider your gift to be good because you’re wishing for a gift that seems so much better.

In fact, you may have such a clear idea in your mind of what you want that the gift you’ve been given doesn’t look like a gift anymore. Instead, you view it as a curse.

As a sinful person, we have the shocking ability to take the very gifts God gives us and throw them back in his face with a cry of ingratitude. “This doesn’t look like a very good present to me! I’d rather have someone else’s gift!”

You cannot give thanks when you’re wishing for something else.

Sometimes we miss out on the chance to say “thank you” because we’re looking around at all the things we don’t have.

You have a steady job, but it’s not something you’re passionate about, so you spend your days trudging through until it’s time to clock out.

You have the gift of children, but they make your life so very complicated, so you spend your days complaining about the messes in your home and heart.

You have a phone, but it’s cracked and five years old.

You have a church that preaches God’s Word, but they don’t have the programs like the church you used to attend, so you hold back from involvement.

You have a spouse, but we can’t even go into all the ways they need to improve. So you regularly talk to them about the ways they disappoint you.

You have a place to live, but it isn’t nearly as nice as your friend’s home (which was recently featured in a magazine), so you look at your home with disdain.

You have a talent you’re trying to develop, but everyone around you is so much better and they never even have to work at it, so you wish for their abilities and give up in frustration.

You have a car, but it more closely resembles the ones in the junkyard than in the showroom.

In all these areas, you have been given something: a job or children, a church or home, a talent or spouse.
It might not be exactly what you want.
In fact, if you were in charge, you probably wouldn’t pick it out for yourself.
But it’s a gift.
And it’s yours.

What do you do when you’re not thankful for God’s gifts?

What do you do when you have a gift, but you’re not thankful for it?

God recently taught me this truth in the midst of my complaining spirit:

The only way to be really, truly, un-hypocritically grateful
is to take what I have in my hand right now,
look straight up to God and say,
“God, thank you. This is so much better than I deserve.”

Because it is. I deserve death because of my sinfulness, yet God has granted me eternal life.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

Not only that, he’s heaped up blessings far beyond eternal life!
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).

I never have a thankful heart when I’m looking around, wishing I had someone else’s life. But when I look at God, who has richly blessed me in Christ with everything I need, he reminds me that he knows exactly what I need—and he alone can meet that need.

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).