Cultivate Thankfulness

“Our lives grow that which has been planted.”

Loren Thornburg

I hope some day to have a backyard like my parents.  Yet I know all the hours of work it takes to make that happen.  I am fully aware that in order to have a backyard full of trees, flowers, fruits and vegetables it takes the work of planting each of those seeds and plants into the ground and the work of cultivating them.  I would never expect my own backyard to look like that without time and work being spent to plant and maintain it.  Yet, somehow I do that with my own life.  I look and wonder why it doesn’t look more fruitful when the reason is that those things have not been planted or cultivated.  It takes work and time.  So then the question becomes what things do I want to grow in my life.  What things do you want to grow in your life?  Start planting now, keep cultivating, and let those things grow up in you.  It’s never too late to cultivate.  

“...And cultivate thankfulness….And sing, sing your hearts out to god! Let every detail in you lives--words, actions, whatever--be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”

Colossians 3:15-17 Message

Colossians 3 is a listing of what it looks like to follow Jesus.  One of the key things mentioned is thankfulness.  Paul says to thank God every step of the way.  Now that seems like a very difficult task.  It seems a tall order for a life filled with difficulty and obstacles to thank God in each step through the trials.   Yet we are called to cultivate thankfulness.  Cultivate means to promote or improve the growth of something by labor and attention.  It is a process that requires time and work.  It doesn’t happen overnight as I would prefer that it would.  I have to plant seeds of thankfulness in my heart and mind in order for them to grow up and out of my life.  I have to be intentional about remembering what I am thankful for even when I don’t feel thankful.  I have to because God calls us to and He calls us to because He knows how much we need this in order to walk through the trial before us.  Our lives grow that which has been planted.  Cultivate Thankfulness. 

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