Thankful, grateful, appreciative...

(2Co 4.13-18)

You have to see the 'big picture' and keep focused...yada, yada, yada. During my working career I hated those rah-rah staff meetings where some consultant, or expert, or motivational person would try to take us into 'paradigm shifts,' finding the 'moved' cheese, or some newly worded brand of improving the quality of systems.

I'm convinced that old cheerleaders never die, they become consultants.

Now that I have been among the ranks of consultants for a few years, I'm equally convinced that those who still can - do; those who no longer can - consult. Thankfully, there are still folks who used to work with me who will recommend me as 'knowing how it ought to be done.'

I don't go into a consulting role with rah-rah-rah. The Apostle Paul wasn't presenting a rah-rah either. When he was encouraging the folks at Corinth to not look at the things that are, as they are, but to look at things that are not - because they are transcendent, he was introducing something beyond hype.

It IS imperative that we, by faith, see the 'big picture' and keep focused. That is said with calm intensity - no hype, no rah-rah-cheer-up-it'll-get-better stuff.

There is a metaphysical ingredient here. God laid it out in Psalms 50:23. "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God."

If being thankful is a genuine sacrifice right now, God will use your sacrifice of thanks-giving to prepare the way so that He can show you the great things that He has in store for you.

In this, we are placing our perspective in the transcendent, the eternal - 'that which was and is and is to come', with the understanding that God will answer in the present, presently.