Three things I'm grateful for

1. God

Jesus gave us the well known Lord’s Prayer to use as a guide on how to pray, not incidentally, to recite by rote. The model prayer starts with the two words “Our Father…”

Each time I pray to God using these words I am recognising two main things; God wants to be addressed as ‘Father’, therefore defining the relationship between us as one where He cares for us as a father does for his children.

Conversely, I am recognising where I fit in this relationship. I am recognising what an amazing privilege it is to have this relationship and reminding myself of the effect this should have on my approach to Him and on my life. All from just two words!

2. Life

Everything comes from God. Something we may not really think about much. Two passages from the Old Testament book of Job clearly show that we only take each breath in our lives because God allows it.

“For the life of every living thing is in his hand, and the breath of every human being.” (Job 12:10, NLT)

“If God were to take back his spirit and withdraw his breath, all life would cease, and humanity would turn again to dust.” (Job 34:14-15, NLT)

At its most fundamental level, my life comes from God. How can I be anything but thankful?

3. Hope

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NLT)

The Bible says it so clearly in the second half of this one short verse; God’s free gift to me is that I can live forever because of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but for me this hope is a central part of my survival in a very messed up world. 

Of course, ‘conditions apply’. But those conditions aren’t onerous. They are all laid out in God’s book.

The main condition is that I have to live my life to the best of my ability as God wants me to. Incidentally this will generally give me a better life now as well; and if everybody lived trying to do what Jesus told us the world wouldn’t be so messed up either.

As they used to say selling newspapers “Read all about it”. It’s all in that widely available book called the bible!