Where Gratitude Begins...

I jotted down the following quote this week.  I don't know who said it, or even where I found it.  Perhaps it was on someone's FaceBook page, among the many pearls of wisdom I read (and some not so gem-like).  Oh, here's the quote:  Gratitude begins where entitlement ends. 

I didn't like that quote.  Pondering it made me think of how "ungrateful" I can be, as there are times when I think I deserve something that I don't get, and that sense of entitlement leaves me spiraling downward.  Immediately the following scenario came to mind.  I just boarded the plane home after a weekend of speaking - a GREAT WEEKEND.  God had moved.  I settled into my bulkhead seat, grateful for a little stretchy-room.  Though the doors had not closed, everyone seemed to be aboard.  The seat next to me was open, and the excitement grew that I could stretch out and maybe sleep a bit. The word describing me that morning - tired!  I started to close my eyes and sensed some movement.  A very bulky gentleman arrived and moved into the seat next to me.  When I say very bulky, I mean, he had to put up the arm rest between us, and his right leg took up 1/2 my seat, as well as his, because he couldn't fit otherwise.  As I readjusted myself in my seat, my attitude also readjusted, but in a negative direction.  Not only did I not get to spread out, I really had to scrunch.  Not only did I not have extra room, I didn't even have the space for which I had paid...and every time the stewardess walked by, the cart hit my arm.  Instead of seeing this as an "opportunity" to give thanks for the flight carrying me home, or the great weekend past, or a friend-yet-to-meet, I turned the flight into the ride-from-down-under.  As Yoda would say, "Miserable I was..."  The bad attitude didn't just affect me emotionally, it affected me physically: headache, tight muscles, exhaustion...  I thought I deserved more...

Read carefully these words from the Psalmist:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Thy name, O Most High; to declare Thy lovingkindness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness by night...for Thou hast made me glad by what Thou hast done (Ps 92:1-2, 4).

I just want to focus on the word "good."  In the Hebrew the word translated good, also incorporates the following translations: well-pleasing, appealing, pleasing to the senses, useful, profitable, a general sense of well-being and happiness.  Stick those words in that verse and ponder.  Do you, like me, ever find yourself in life-events that start you on the downward spiral, which, then, affects you mentally, emotionally, and physically?  You just seem to live there in that place of frustration?  The soul-medicine, the road to well-being, and the journey upward to happiness and peace is to find the road sign that takes you on a detour of THANKSGIVING.  Nothing is more personally profitable than taking that detour, when life sticks a roadblock in the way.

Indeed, the problem begins when I think I deserve something.  Certainly, I paid for an entire seat.  Certainly, I didn't get my whole seat.  Yet...on this side of that ride, I made the flight much more miserable than it could have been.  It was my choice, my sense of entitlement, that kept me from finding true joy and peace, in spite of...  Life just happens...but I have a choice how I am affected by it.