It’s easy to become weary nowadays. We turn on the TV and within minutes we can easily spiral downward in fear and worry. The events of today can feel so very heavy; catapulting us into a posture of control. We grab on to everything and everyone around us, trying to hold on to a semblance of peace and control, leaving us tight fisted walking through our days.
I recently heard someone say that the first thing you should do when you’re feeling angry or threatened is to release your tight fists — a posture we all go to in response to such feelings — open your hands, and turn the palms of your hands towards the sky. This posture, they explained, eases tensions, fears, and anger.
This posture, it puts us in a place of release.
As I have been pondering the events of our world lately, I’ve realized that I so quickly ball up my fists in fear. I grab a hold of anything I can in order to control my little world, because what is outside the walls of my life seems so ugly, so sinful, so evil at times. And it’s not even like I can blame it solely outside of my home.
My heart is too often a place where ugliness lingers all the more. My own heart is a breeding-ground for sin and selfishness; a truth I can’t neglect to bare witness to as well.
I’m learning, in the midst of the ugliness and sin that hovers, that the key to unlocking this fear is to foster an environment of thanks.
[Tweet “Darkness cannot bring me down when my heart is exploding from a root of gratitude and praise. “]
My posture can’t be one of control when I recognize that all good and perfect gifts are given from above.
When I start to spiral into a posture of control, when my fists start to clench onto anything and everything of good around me, my heart grows weary, my focus becomes blurry, and my God seems small. Control is just an illusion. But when I pry back my fingers from the control I think I have, when I lay my palms out before my God and meditate upon the God who holds it all, that’s when my heart swells and my mouth sings of praise.
[Tweet “My God cannot be shaken by the world’s events, and He cannot be controlled by my tight fists. “]
The God of grandeur that I serve and love, He is so much bigger than I can even begin to fathom, and when I approach my day, the world, my sin, and Him with a heart of submission to His plan, a heart of praise for His care, that’s when I see the beauty of it all- even the ugliness.
Because my God, He can take beauty from those ashes, He can and He will redeem it all.
And so, going into this day of thanks, I ask you to come alongside me and praise God for all things . . . even the hard things, even the ashes.
I ask you to come alongside me with palms open to the heavens, before a God who has promised redemption and mercy to those who love Him.
I ask you to come alongside me with a heart of thanks . . .a posture that washes away the darkness, bringing forth the Light.
Let’s praise Him together this Thanksgiving, friends, let’s go to Him with a posture of thanks.
