Spoiled Americans?

Pondering this scripture:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
16. Rejoice always
17. Pray Continually
18. Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Thinking about this scripture for the past couple of days I couldn't help but think of how spoiled I am and how thankless I really am most of the time. Being a mom has taught me a lot!! My boys have been acting so spoiled and thankless a lot of the time so I started an activity with them in the mornings on the way to school. I thought it would be a good idea to start our day by telling God what 3 (minimum) things we are thankful for. If we start the day positive by giving thanks to God our minds will be set on God and giving thanks rather than starting the "woe is me" bit. Funny how I started this for my children and realized how much I really needed this!

I don't follow politics that much (please no stone throwing!) but I know enough to know that our government is corrupt because of greed and sin. I often hear much complaining about where our country is headed and how horrible our leaders are. This is true, all true but for some reason which we have no idea God has chosen these people in leadership over us, Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

Do we give thanks for the leaders we have? We are told to give thanks in all circumstances. I know I sure don't think to do that very often-to be honest it is even hard to think about anything to be thankful for with most of them!!

How can I be thankful though? Some circumstances are difficult, suffering from an illness, money problems, divorce, children. In all that I say here I am NOT taking away from any of these sufferings or saying they are easy nor is it easy to look at the blessing in them because they surely are not easy to find in the midst of suffering!! Am I able to find things to be thankful for in these circumstances though? I can remember a couple of years ago when I had my kidney stone, I was complaining to my sweet, wise husband saying that this was taking forever to be done with! In his gentle, loving way he told me that rather than complaining I could be thankful for being in America. People in other parts of the world do not have access to medicines, doctors and hospitals the way we do! How often do I complain about the medicine we have to take or the doctor bill I have to pay (which is outrageous!!) rather than really putting things into perspective and falling to our knees thanking God for placing me in America where we have this luxury!

Am I REALLY thankful for our ability to go to church? being able to posses a bible? being able to go to the doctor? our home? electricity? water? car? TV? DVD player? computer? cell phone? The list is endless- all things listed above are things I tend to think of as necessities. What if God chose for me all of a sudden to remove all of these things- I would be lost. Simply being able to turn on the water in our home is a luxury I take for granted- how many people around the world are dying because they don't have clean drinking water? How many people make their houses out of cow dung? How many people die because of a simple infection because there is no antibiotics? How many people starve to death? How many people have to WALK miles and miles just to get to work every day- for the $2.00/week they get? Talk about getting underpaid and under appreciated!! How many children can't go to school because they can't afford it? How many people are being put in prison or killed for believing in Christ?

I know this scripture has really got me thinking about how thankful I am to be an American and I have been able to really put my own complaining in perspective. Corrupt as our government is- it could be much, much worse! I am thankful to live in America- land of the free.