In everything give thanks… (1 Thessalonians 5:18, KJV)
Have you acquired the habit of giving thanks in everything? If not, you have the opportunity to give yourself one of the greatest gifts you’ve ever received. Arguably, a more important habit than brushing your teeth daily.
I read a story recently that has prompted me to continue this series on giving thanks in everything. Linda Nordyke, in her book, If Today Is All I Have, wrote that doctors told her she would not live to see her 25th birthday. She was plagued with Type 1 Diabetes. But she survived 168 hospitalizations, two organ transplants, multiple strokes, heart failure, and was blind the last three years of her life.
One day she crawled into a closet so tiny she could sit in one place and touch all four walls. “I made a choice to trust the God I love,” she said. “I discovered that the smallest mustard seed of faith could move mountains… where anger had been, God began to build something different… A heart of thanksgiving.”
“I was able to talk to Him about the obvious good around me…” she said, “to thank Him for the things I could see no good in whatsoever…. That small seed of faith… watered with thanksgiving began to grow into something else, peace. What I’d been looking for all along.”
Rather than focus on all the pain, Linda chose to see “the abundance of good around her.”
She lived to be 45, a shining example of what can happen to a person who learns to give thanks in everything.
Some teachers say a habit can be built in 21 days if practiced with wholeheartedness. Others say 30 days. Others 40 days. This principle of the power in repetition is true in golf and in life.
However many days it takes it’s not too late to begin, especially when we’re speaking of a godly characteristic that is good for you and for everyone around you. Start by giving thanks for whatever comes to you mind at this moment. It’s that simple.
—
Jim Hiskey
February 25, 2014
Copyright 2014 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.