“More gratitude give me,” (“More Holiness Give Me”, Phillip Paul Bliss). Whenever many of us imagine having the opportunity to encounter a genie offering us three wishes, the first wish we want is to ask for more wishes. God is not a genie, nor does He grant wishes, but He has promised that if we ask in faith we will receive, and that He is ready to give us all that He has. The Savior also taught us that to them that receive, more shall be given. Therefore, if we want to do the equivalent of wishing for more wishes, then we have to figure out a way to maximize our ability to receive the blessings of the Lord, because the more that we receive, the more we will be given. And the best way for us to be able to receive more and more is to increase our gratitude. Being grateful allows us to be humble enough to acknowledge that the blessings we receive have more to do with God's love for and generosity with us than with any inherent worthiness or merit we ourselves possess. Gratefulness itself is one of those blessings and is equally something that we don't develop or earn on our own. Having pure and sincere gratitude clears out any sense of pride or vanity or false modesty or insecurity that might be clogging up the conduit pouring God's blessings into our lives. We welcome the blessings as they come and because we are confident that the flow will not only continue uninterrupted but the volume will only accelerate, we therefore don't feel the need to hoard such blessings but instead freely share them out with everyone around us. Nor do we draw lines around who is or isn't our neighbor or judge those who are worthy of sharing in the love and forgiveness and unlimited bounty that the Lord is pouring down upon us. Asking for more and more gratitude is like asking for bigger and bigger rooms to receive all of the Lord's blessings but knowing that our Father's generosity will always outpace our gratitude, such that no matter how big of a room we make, we will never have room enough to receive all of His blessings. I know that however blessed we have been and to whatever depths of gratitude we have expressed our thanks for such blessings, we can have even more gratitude and receive even more blessings. I hope we will all ask for a little more gratitude each day, so that the Lord can give us that much more of His blessings each day.
