The Most Powerful Gratitude Is Often Found In The Mess

​It's Thanksgiving week. A great week to be grateful for all that we have. But as a reminder, it's also a great week to be grateful for all that we are about to have.

I've spent more of my life than I am proud of NOT being grateful. And that's because I spent a lot of my life negotiating gratitude with God.

"Hey God, if you'll get me through this, I will be the most grateful child of God you've ever created."

And many times, sometimes when I heard it and sometimes when I didn't, God would say, "Have you ever thought that being grateful might actually be your path to getting through this?"

Have you ever thought that the time for being grateful isn't when you finally beat the addiction, but when you know you're going to beat it?

Have you ever thought that the time for being grateful for the relationship isn't when the relationship is just right, but when you know you have all you need to make it right?

Have you ever thought that the time to be grateful for the job isn't when the right job comes along, but when you acknowledge all the right things you can make of the job you have right now?

Waiting on circumstances to be grateful for isn't gratitude, it's often negotiation. But real gratitude, the most powerful kind of gratitude, is finding the beauty in circumstances that don't feel so beautiful, a beauty often found in seeing where you're going and not being stuck where you are.

I can look back on a life I would have a hard time describing as anything other than messy. And yet, God was always in the mess saying here we go, Keith.

Sometimes that felt like invitation, and sometimes it felt like God dragging me kicking and screaming out of my mess. But mess was never the plan, it was always the path.

So I sit here this Thanksgiving week. Reflecting back on the mess. Back on all the times that looked and felt like there wasn't a thing to be grateful for, and in the words of Seph Schlueter 🎵:

God, I'm still counting my blessings
All that You've done in my life
The more that I look in the details
The more of Your goodness I find
Father, on this side of Heaven
I know that I'll run out of time
But I will keep counting my blessings
Knowing I can't count that high

It's a powerful reminder - Thanksgiving.

It's a powerful reminder - looking back at the messy details of your life and counting all the beauty that came from what once felt like irredeemable messes.

It's a powerful reminder - be grateful for all you have, for sure, but maybe even more, be grateful for where you're going. Be grateful that mess is usually more opportunity than roadblock.

So be grateful for the opportunity, and seize it.