The Mood Hoover

One of the most memorable characters J K Rowling has left us with are the dementors.  Creatures that suck all joy out of the world as they feast on your soul.  These creatures are mood hoovers, everything feels bleak, everything joyful and happy is hoovered away.  Tragically we sometimes meet people like that, even more tragically sometimes we meet professing Christians who are like that.

As you talk to them the world is only full of problems, when you try to suggest a positive in a situation you are met by a "yes, but..." and the conversation continues on its mood hoovering way.  This simple should not be.  Joy, we are continually told in the scriptures is a mark of the believer.  Thankfulness and gratefulness similarly are to mark out the believer.  That's not to say we aren't realistic, we do not live with our head in the clouds pretending everything is great.  Christians know the broken reality of our cursed and fallen world better than anyone, we lament over it, we pray for Christ to come.  But Christians are not to be the real world's dementors.

Rather we live full of the deep rooted settled joy that comes from being a loved child of God, loved, redeemed, reconciled at the cost of Jesus death for us.  We live life in the world secure in our Father's care and love, grateful for the good things he has given us.  We need to learn to practice this gratefulness.  How?  Let me ask a question; can you instantly name 5 things you are thankful for this morning?  What were 5 things you were grateful for from the day as you lay your head down to go to sleep.  Looking at our days like this helps us see how much we have been given every day, how good God is, how there are scattered beams of his glory and goodness shot through our world.

Its a small beginning in learning to live every day grateful to God.  It's something that we can do even as we face suffering, because brokenness never totally defines us nor must we let it.  We are children of a God good who is generous and gracious.  And when you find yourself being a dementor, look for those 5 things in your day for which you can and should give God thanks.

I am so grateful to God that I didn't only wake up today with the things I thanked him for yesterday.