Matters of mushrooms, vines and a grateful heart by Gary Rose

I think this little fella is appreciating this mushroom, don't you?  Rain falls on us all, doesn't it? And yet we have been blessed with life and somehow, someway, we have arrived at today? 

I remember year after year of wondering how I was ever going to "make it". Looking back now, I can see God's hand in everything and I mean everything! Otherwise, there is simply no reasonable explanation of how I have gotten this far.

Today, I will remember to thank God for HIS provisions in my life and express that heartfelt appreciation in prayer. 

Jonah, Chapter 4 (WEB)

  ⁵ Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city.  ⁶ Yahweh God prepared a vine, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine.  ⁷ But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine, so that it withered.  ⁸ When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 

  ⁹ God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” 

He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.” 
  ¹⁰ Yahweh said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. ¹¹ Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?”  (emp. added GDR)

Jonah on the other hand was not grateful and was rebuked by God. His bad example is a lesson to us all. We need to be thankful for what God has done for us and appreciate our blessings.