Does your list of things your thankful for seem to be the same as everyone else? You are truly grateful for all the things you have and the experiences you’ve encountered, but you wish you had a larger heart-felt fullness of thanksgiving? Would you appreciate if your heart was controlled by thankfulness in a more magnificent way? Do you have room to enlarge, elevate, and engage in thankfulness?
Gratitude is a common word in our culture. Many individuals practice a regular habit of giving thanks daily, writing down their thoughts of thankfulness. and expressing the things in their life that bring them joy for which they are thankful. It is easy to go through the motions of thankfulness and point our heart to things that we really are thankful for because we don’t know what we would do without them. Additionally, as followers of God, we know that every one of these good things we are thankful for comes from The Father. Could you still use more depth to your thanks or more heart to your gratitude?
In 1 Samuel 2:1-10 you can find a “Song of Thanksgiving” as one translation titled this passage. In it you can find 5 actions to take today that will make your giving of thanks be more meaningful.
- Rejoice in God’s Deliverance
- Recognize God for His Holiness
- Remember God Determines
- Rehearse the Final Verdicts of God
- Realize God is the Giver/Withholder of all health, wealth, and prosperity
When you establish your giving of thanks with these five actions, you will experience a more meaningful thanksgiving. You will be full of joy because you see clearly it was God who kept you during the year of struggle and difficulty. The none-otherness of God and His presence in your life will bring tears to your eyes as you recognize how He personally met with you during the year and guided you through difficulty. Hopes and dreams that did or did not come to pass will be traced back to God’s determination of “best” for your life. Telling others about the things God protected you from and directed you through will fill your heart with a magnitude of gratitude. Finally, the realization God is the giver of everything you have will enlighten your eyes with abundant thankfulness.
As you meet with others this Thanksgiving Season take the opportunity to enlarge your thankfulness, elevate your heart-felt giving of thanks, and engage in a more heart-felt fullness of gratitude. Let the list of things you are grateful for not come from your head but come from the overflow of your heart.
Here are some prompts you can pose to your heart to fill it up with gratitude:
- How has your heart been enlarged with God’s Victory?
- What are three characteristics of God you’ve experienced?
- Identify circumstances God kept you from, helped you through, and guided you in?
- Tell someone the accurate decisiveness of God.
- Write down the current and eternal health, wealth and prosperity you’ve received from God’s hand.
Sample responses to the prompts from Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1-10:
How has your heart been enlarged with God’s Victory?
– My heart rejoices in the Lord, He is my strength.
– God is my salvation
What are three characteristics of God you’ve experienced?
– There is no one holy as the Lord.
– There is no rock like God.
– God is Supreme in all His doings.
Identify circumstances God kept you from, helped you through, and guided you in? experienced?
– The feeble He strengthens.
– Enables the barren to give birth.
– Fulfills the desire of the hungry.
Tell someone the accurate decisiveness of God.
– Hannah sang her song of thanksgiving before all the people and priest.
Write down the current and eternal health, wealth and prosperity you’ve received from God’s hand.
– God’s Word records the fact that God kills and makes alive, he makes poor and rich, and he determines the prosperity of all.
– God gives strength to the king and exalts the strength of His anointed.
Take these 5 actions today and experience a more
meaningful time of giving thanks.
Written By: Anne Gurley
