Not Just For Girls

A phenomenon has swept through my home, the homes of my wife's friends, and the homes of most of the female members of my ABF this past year.   It's called "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp.   According to my wife, it is a life changing book.  And yes, I can see a change in her and how she has handled this past year.


The premise of the book is this - be thankful - and keep track of these things that you are thankful for in a journal or notebook of some type all the way up to 1000.  To see God's gift to us in every circumstance, no matter how hard or beautiful it might seem at the time.


The women love it!   But how come it's just them?


Why don't men count their blessings?  
Why aren't we giving thanks in all things?  
And writing them down so we can look back over them?   


I know sometimes we do utter a quick "Thank You Jesus", especially when there are scary moments and we escape back to our normal, everyday life.   But just saying the word "blessings" or "counting gifts" sounds like something a woman might do.  It's almost like we think it could be unmanly to do such a thing.

But Jesus --- the most manly man --- gave thanks --- even on the night before he went to the cross.

"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  Luke 22:19 ESV

The second "I" of Uprising/REUP is INTIMACY.  It is centered around spending time journaling and recording God's work and blessings in our lives.  Doing so we leave a memorial of our own for our families and generations to come. 


In Joshua 4:5-7 we read, "⁵ And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, ⁶ that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ ⁷ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”  ESV

How different would we be as fathers, as husbands, as sons, as friends, as employees, as volunteers, as teammates, as bosses if we lived a life of giving thanks?    If we spent time each day recording what God has done in and around our lives?


Henry Ward Beecher said, "The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings"!