Gratitude is not only a response to God in good times - it's ultimately the very will of God in hard times. Gratitude isn't only a celebration when good things happen. It's a declaration that God is good no matter what happens.

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.

We want clarity -- and God gives a call. We want a road map --- and God gives a relationship. We want answers -- and God gives His hand.

Of asking nothing of the reader - but offering a still, quiet oasis in the cybersphere to go vertical with God. An island of stillness to know that He is 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.

Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.

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