bring it to Jesus.

When I arrived at church the other day, there were more cars in the parking lot than I expected. And the parking team was filling in the lot in a way that put me in a spot I didn’t prefer to park in.

It was so ridiculous, but for some reason I was grumpy about the parking situation. Mostly, I was thrown off by the arrangement. I made a few comments about it to my friend who rode with me, and then we went into church.

…where the pastor preached on the Israelites who grumbled in the wilderness. And missed out on experiencing the promises of God.

Grumbling and complaining, he said, was evidence that the Israelites didn’t believe God. Because of it, a trip that could have taken 11 days ended up taking 40 years. And the generation that was brought out of captivity didn’t live to enter the promised land.

Joshua and Caleb were the only two who went from captivity to the promised land. Because they believed God. Even Moses fell short of that and wasn’t able to enter the promised land.

When you have a heart posture that gives God the side-eye and speaks negatively about the circumstances you see in front of you, you can’t actually handle the promises of God if He gave them to you. Because it’s not what you carry but how you carry it.

The pastor went on to talk about the power of repentance and how you can’t grumble and be grateful at the same time. We prayed––and I repented for even those comments I made in the parking lot just an hour or so before.

I asked God to shift my posture to one that enters with gratitude. That I would immediately notice and dwell on what there is to be thankful for rather than what doesn’t seem to be working out––or what my own preferences are.

The next morning, on a team call, my coworker commented on how lousy the rainy weather was in Nashville. And I immediately wanted to push back on that. He wasn’t necessarily complaining, but “lousy” was not the word I wanted assigned to it.

Typically, I don’t jump in during these moments of banter as everyone is logging on. Having an open conversation with 15 other people in a Zoom meeting feels chaotic to me. But I took myself off mute and quickly rattled off multiple reasons I was grateful for the weather that day.

Another coworker commented on “what a positive spin” I had put on a rainy day. But I didn’t really think about it until I took a break later that morning.

I wasn’t trying to be positive or grateful. I didn’t hear my coworker’s comments and think, “Wow, he shouldn’t be complaining about this. I must flip this narrative around.” I simply thought about my own gratitude, and apparently I felt the need to announce it to the entire call.

What I didn’t really think about until later is how I had prayed for that shift in perspective, and God did it in me. Without me even realizing it.

I focused in on the thought that popped into my head, and I chose to say it out loud. But the posture of gratitude was God in me.

Because honestly, I don’t love a rainy day. And yet, I was literally overflowing with thankfulness.

Sometimes I think things like gratitude are things I can do myself. If I just try hard enough, I should be able to be thankful instead of annoyed. But it’s actually much better (and faster) if I bring it to Jesus.

The power of God is in you, even on a Thursday.