Our fear of inadequacy focuses on what we lack not what we have. Gratitude, on the other hand, is the polar opposite. Gratitude is the embracing of His sufficiency and the Lord’s gifts in our life. One path leads to death and bitterness and the other to life and lasting joy.
Deep Gratitude
As I have focused on loving myself and caring for myself as a respect and honoring of the person Christ made, I have entered into deep gratitude. I even use an app daily to keep me on track in this process. I mentioned this app back in a post in March. It is called the Five Minute Journal and it has become a part of my daily routine. There is also a book version, but while being worth every penny, it can be expensive and I would rather do it in my phone anyway. In the app I can attach photos for the day, which is something I love as a visual guy.
At times in my life, I struggled with fears of inadequacy. I focused on what I lacked in my life. This train of thought is an existence of drudgery and despair. In it we become an accuser of God and leave all semblance of Life. It just is impossible to be ungrateful and not dwell in death. Ingratitude views everything through the lens of lack – my lack specifically. And in addition, anything others have actually is somehow seen as a slight on ME. The self-talk is: “I don’t have. I can’t do. I am not…” You fill in your blank.
Fear of Inadequacy — Romans ONE
This whole path will lead us down the Romans One road—a descending spiral into immorality and mental illness. So you see why gratitude is so important as a heart position, view, and mindset. To remain in ingratitude is simply self-hatred and God-hatred. This is what scripture says about this.
…for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark.
Romans 1:21 TLV
The devastation of a life that focuses on lack is too detrimental to endure. Giving thanks to God and living in gratitude is the only way to sustain life. It is joy and enjoyment. It’s adventure and exhilaration. Yes, it is blessing and Life. We have what we focus on in this life—crushing lack or abundant, Shepherd provision. It is all in our hands to choose. The reality is that we have precisely what we believe we have in this life. If we believe in limitation and lack, then this is what we will experience in life. But if we express gratitude and see sufficiency, that will be the Life we will have.
This morning when I was at the gym, a song was playing and one of the lines kinda rings true with this post. “It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got” (Sheryl Crow, Soak Up the Sun). We have so much, but we can rob ourselves of the joy by focusing on what is missing. It is a tragedy to live as a beggar while being rich as a king. All of us have blessings from the Lord, and when I celebrate them, I receive them. Likewise, the refusal to be grateful is the loss of everything.
