Are you Thankful for your Gift?

My son couldn’t have been more than 5 years old when he learned a valuable lesson about thankfulness. It was during one of our visits to my in-laws that my children ran to the ‘surprise drawer’ my mother-in-law had created for them to check. My children anticipated their gift with each trip to their grandparent’s home. On this particular day all three of my children ran to the drawer and excitedly opened it to retrieve their ‘surprise’. It was at this moment that the excitement turned to embarrassment for me as my middle child grabbed his gift. Imagine his face turning from pure delight to sheer disappointment in less than two seconds…yes, it looked liked something from a movie! He turned to his grandmother and with a sound of dismay stated, “I already have this.” It was one of those times in life that I wished I had a pause-life button that I could hit and stop something as I sensed it was coming. No such luck for me or my son on this day! Needless to say, he was quickly exited from the room as we had a crash course on being ‘thankful for whatever you have been given’ in the privacy of the bathroom. That same son is now 19 years old and in college, yet often a reference is made to this incident by his grandparents when an opportunity arises to complain. Someone in the family will mockingly say, “I am thankful for whatever I get” in a tone that is a reminder of his little voice echoing those words. It became something he said with each gift he received from that day on.

I can’t help but think how I so often do this to my Heavenly Father with one of the most precious gifts He has given me—the gift of time. The way I use the gift of time could be an indicator about how I feel about it.
Do I waste time on things such as TV, internet, Facebook, etc?
Do I use it for what I want instead of what He would want? Serving Him by serving others.
Do I use it on things that have no eternal value over and over again? Building my kingdom instead of His kingdom.
Do my actions, in essence, say that I already have plenty of time and I can do what I want and when I want?
The way I use the time allotted to me is an indicator about what I think of His gift. If I am truly His child, His servant, and His creation then I will realize that my time is not mine at all, but rather His. I am to be a good steward of the time He has given me. His Word says, “So, teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) Time…only God controls how much we get of it. Are we making choices that reflect a heart that is truly “thankful for whatever we get”?
In His Love,
Lori