Thanksgiving is tomorrow here in the United States. This is the day of the year when we take the time to be grateful for the blessings that God has given us. However, gratitude should be practiced more than just this single day each year.

A thankful attitude has several tremendous benefits. There are ties to health and physical benefits. Some studies indicate that thankful people are less stressful people. Others suggest that gratitude benefits the emotional realm, and that negative emotions are reduced or eliminated when thankfulness is practiced.

Still another benefit of being grateful is the impact on our relationships. Thankful people are fun to be around and your relationships will benefit from surrounding yourself with those people.

However, there is one advantage of gratitude that supersedes all of these and more. Gratitude carries a benefit far greater than each of these. A thankful heart has one effect upon people that cannot be matched.

Grateful people have learned to rely completely upon the Lord.

You can do a study of the word thankful and all of its derivatives and find out that the Bible has much to say about the idea of gratitude. You will find out that being thankful is an example for us to follow, that thankfulness is a benefit for our spiritual lives, that it is, in fact, a part of God’s will for us.

But most importantly, thankful people realize that God is the source of everything and that we must rely on him completely. Thankful people get that. Thankful people understand that our dependence upon the Lord is the foundation for everything we do.

Psalm 100 gives us a brief glimpse into this reality:

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; his lovingkindness is everlasting and his faithfulness to all generations.

The psalmist is so centered in his reliance upon God that he sees thankfulness as a natural and continuous response. All we have comes from God, so gratitude is our proper response as well. And out of gratitude flow love and worship.

The reverse of that is true also. A lack of gratitude leads to feelings of entitlement, which says, “I deserve this, and I need no one’s help to achieve it or receive it.”

So tomorrow, as you remember to display your thankfulness to God, use that opportunity as a springboard to create a habit of gratitude for the rest of the week, for the month, and for the years to come.

A thankful heart is a heart that fully relies upon God for every single thing in life. Gratitude is the attitude we must develop in order to become the people he desires us to be.

Question: How do you maintain an attitude of gratitude? You can leave a comment by clicking here.