Multitude Monday, Take 236

Counting the gifts, one thousand gifts, isn’t a pop culture kind of gratitude. It isn’t a new age kind of feel-good exercise. It isn’t trendy. And it definitely isn’t comfortable.

Counting one thousand gifts is to live the radical thanks to Christ. It’s about an exercise in the age to come coming now and finding comfort in the Comforter. It’s the culture of believers really believing, the culture of God and the Blood of the Lamb.

This world doesn’t need trendy gratitude like it needs Jesus gratitude.

The kind that gives thanks for the bread and the nails, for the fire that refines and the blood that saves.

That gives thanks in the pitch and the thunder, the wind and Gethsemane black, that gives thanks even staring into the face of death because it sees His face in all things — because it fiercely believes in relentless Grace and the Hound of Heaven who can’t stop pursuing in Love.

That doesn’t gives nebulous thanks to the universe, but named thanks to the King of the Universe.

--Ann Voskamp

Thanking the King of Kings this week for...

2673. husband encouraging me to use my gifts
2674. dance party with my boys
2675. keeping all His promises
2676. a birthday party for a sweet girl from church
2677. music that voices my heart

2678. a baby whom I have to get up and nurse at 4:40AM
2679. His kind providence in my Bible reading plan
2680. room full of friends singing hymns together
2681. Jude's growing use of signs (I need to learn some more!)
2682. a friend babysitting for the boys during an appointment

2683. free pizza from Papa John's
2684. sweet emails from friends, and their prayers
2685. a delightful snail-mail note
2686. long walk on the greenway
2687. dinner out with my guys

2688. custom playlists of favorite songs
2689. Elijah's verdict on the cutout sugar cookies we made: "It's the most delicious cookie I've ever seen."
2690. a husband who is so easy to respect
2691. Steve's gospel insights
2692. the countless ways he serves and serves and serves me

2693. grace to trust when I don't understand
2694. the assurance that He will complete what He's begun in me
2695. the knowledge that everything in my life has been appointed by Him in love
2696. the guarantee that what He desires gets done