We were made to live in a posture of grateful worship, and when we live in praise we live our purpose, and all the pieces fall in place, us all falling down in thanks.

In counting gifts, to one thousand, more, I discover that slapping a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life leaves me deeply thankful for very few things in my life.

Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else's, and you've just picked up a stick and beaten up your own soul.

All God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart.

We're not giving what we're called to give, unless that giving affects how we live - affects what we put on our plate and where we make our home and hang our hat and what kind of threads we've got to have on our back. Surplus Giving is the leftover you can afford to give; Sacrificial Giving is the love gift that changes how you live - because the love of Christ has changed you. God doesn't want your leftovers. God wants your love overtures, your first-overs, because He is your first love.

Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything-prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.