GodReflection: Power Words

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; – Psalms 95:6

The word ‘full’ is a warm fuzzy.

To be full means I cannot hold one more taste of juicy steak or butter loaded baked potato. I’m full—what a feeling of completeness.

Is it possible for gratitude to fill my soul so completely that no room exists for more? In that state, I am full—to the brim—with thanks.

I am thanks-full.

Often in prayer I thank God for more blessings than I can enumerate.

I list family, my home, food, clothing, health, and then use blessings as a catchall for the heavenly bounty that comes my way.

Upon graduation from university, I found myself living in a developing world country. There were times when I worshipped with believers who lived with dirt floors in their shacks. Some lived in little dwellings where their dirt floors morphed into cement. They found themselves among those moving upward on the economic scale.

As I recall, their list of blessing didn’t linger so much around the material as it did around their fullness of thanksgiving for God’s care.

How is it possible for people who are dirt floor poor to be full of thanks?

Does worship supply the answer?

Without being ungrateful to God for my laundry list of His physical blessings, is it possible I could set aside my enormous blessing inventory—scrape off a level spot at the foot of the cross—and completely identify with the poverty stricken who are ‘thanks-full’ because of what God did for them through the blood of Jesus?

Here is what I think.

It occurs to me that I don’t worship God because He is more monetarily generous with me than with some or less monetarily generous with me than with others.

Sure, I appreciate the good things I receive in this world. However, my earthly bounty has little if anything to do with my thankfulness.

It is when I sit in silence and to the best of my ability see who I am without the act of God on a cross. Reality strikes me. It is only through the gift of His son who willingly stood in my place as a sin offering that I escape senselessness on earth and eternal damnation at Judgment.

Greater still is the thought of eternal life on a new earth when life with all of its joys will reflect the perfection of God. How about the prospect of awakening to all of the goodness of earth—and more—knowing I will never again encounter even a hint of evil.

I will be living the reality of perfection forever.

It is in such moments my brim-full cup of coffee will hold no more. It is full. Thanks can only be my response. I am thank-full. With my mug filled to the very brim. Worship erupts.

Thankful becomes a word of power that overflows into worship.

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells – A GodReflection on the Word Thankful as a Power Word of Worship.

Gary@GodReflection.org