One Thousand Gifts-Take 2!

I am attempting to begin again a fantastic book my bestie, Stacey, gave me a few months ago that she said spoke to her heart. One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. The moving of roots took me from it only a chapter into it and my sister's discovery of it from a friend has prompted me to dust if off and dig back in to it from the beginning. As I read some of the highlighted passages from the first go 'round, I get excited all over again and humbly amazed.It amazes me that the same passage can be read by different women, in different ages/stages/phases of life, in different time zones and leave each with "How does she know that is exactly how I feel?!" I realize tonight through reading a bit more of the chapter that it is because the issue is a human one. A heart issue that doesn't discriminate. An equal opportunity blemish, if you will. Ingratitude. Ugly word isn't it? Offensive even.
Voskamp wrote the following: "what I have, who I am, where I am, how I am, what I've got-this simply isn't enough."
"Our fall (including Adam and Eve) was, has always been and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God with what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other."
It is easy to deny this "disease" lives in any of us. This spirit of ingratitude is deceptive. It is as easy as wanting new furniture, a cleaner house, a more engaging marriage, different music played at church,  or thinner thighs! It is more easy to see when we pray for something feverishly and it may even be something we are beseeching on some one's behalf. The prayer goes answered or almost more painfully, answered in a way we didn't see as God's best.
We throw our temper tantrums. We tell God "I won't accept this from you. I thought you loved me." I think, in our humanness, our view of love is so damaged by our sense of entitlement. There is a lack of gratitude or even the absence of it because there is an attitude of entitlement. Think about it...when we don't get our way we might not fall to the ground in tears with our fists and feet flying but we sulk. We question. We huff. We sigh. We keep score. We play the martyr. We jut out our chins in defiance and tell God "I am not going to be your friend if you don't do what I want."
Why? Because we honestly think we DESERVE what we want. I know that is how I have felt but perhaps I am the only one. And, that my friend is entitlement. We would never grant every wish our children make but when it comes to us, adults, we sing a different tune.
How do I know this? Because I have lived it and if not careful, will continue to live it. I know that "hunger for something more, something other." I have been through various stages: God answers prayers to I will pray but I won't dare ask for anything to if God is going to do what He wants to anyway then why bother praying to IF there is a God, He doesn't live here. I know that place. I have bought Satan's lies. It is a dangerous and less than fun place to be. And being raised Southern Baptist will cause you to choke on that bitter pill.
"Now everywhere we look, we only see all that isn't: holes, lack, deficiency." Voskamp
We have some how lost our humbleness. In truth, we deserve nothing! Forgotten "our place" in accordance to WHO God is and who WE ARE NOT. There is no fear left in our "God fearing". We have leveled the playing field in our minds.  Made the planning of our lives a collaborative effort with God in a consultative position rather than recognizing His sovereignty.  We have lost our reverence, our awe for His power.
We have in short, "dumbed" God down.
How insulting that must be for Him.