“Overflowing with Thanksgiving” — Week 4
By Brenda V. Hess, Area Women’s Ministries President, Western Europe, Mediterranean & Middle East

Have you ever met someone who complains all the time? We all have. But too often complaining comes all too easy to our own lips. We want people to sympathize with us, so when things go wrong (and they will—sooner of later), we start complaining. The kids are unruly, our spouse is in a bad mood, things are not going well at our church, decisions have not gone the way we wanted them to go, etc.

Colossians 2:6, 7 reads, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness“(NIV).

The word “overflowing” brings to my mind the Thanksgiving horn of plenty spilling out the blessing of an abundant harvest. We need to ask our self the question, “What is overflowing from my horn of plenty? Is it complaining? Is it pride? Is it selfishness?—or is it thanksgiving?” Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

Have you ever notice on the commercial of the Pillsbury Doughboy (trademark of the Pillsbury Company) how when someone pokes him in the stomach, he never flares up but automatically responds with a friendly “Oh!”? Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be as fat as he is, but I would like to be like him. When someone does me wrong or says something untrue about me, I would hope that I could react, not in anger, but with love and thanksgiving overflowing from me.

I once read in a devotional book the following statement, “Every person has many blessings and at least a few misfortunes. The ones they reflect upon will either strengthen or weaken them.” We sometimes forget that ingratitude can not only be a part of life, but it can be a way of life. Likewise, gratitude can not only be a part of life, but it can be a way of life. We need to ask our self the questions, “Which one overflows in my life—ingratitude or gratitude? Do I daily dwell on the things I have to be thankful for, or do I constantly dwell on the situations that cause me to be ungrateful?” Sometimes we dwell on the wrongs when there is so much right that we could dwell upon. No wonder there are so many unhappy people in the world! Probably in all of our lives right now we could find situations that would cause us to say that our life is miserable and depressing, or we could find situations to cause us to say that our life is overflowing with blessings.

I have found out over the years, that even on my worst, darkest days, I can find blessings for which to be thankful. If we overflow with thankfulness, we won’t spend as much time dwelling on the difficulties that are present in our life.

Once again, I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s outlook on life when, from a prison in Rome, he wrote a letter to Colossians telling them about the affect Christ can have upon a person’s life, in spite of circumstances. He wrote, “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness.” In other words, Paul is saying that we should not let anything cause us to not have thanksgiving to God in our heart. There is always an abundance—an overflow—of blessings to count.

As women of God, let’s not stop counting our blessings or dwelling on the things that we should appreciate. In spite of everything negative that may be going on in our life, let’s be sure that gratitude is consistently overflowing from our life. Let’s not count our problems, but rather let’s consistently count our blessings.

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