Midway through Chapter 4 of One Thousand Gifts, author Ann Voskamp establishes the concept that thanksgiving makes- as opposed to takes- time. Referencing John’s account of Jesus feeding the 5000 (John 6: 1-15), Ann posits that when we slow down time by giving full attention to God’s gifts with joy, grace and thanksgiving (eucharisteo), our basket of not-enough time multiplies into more than enough time. It then follows that the real problem of life isn’t the lack of time, it’s the lack of thanksgiving.
Ann then returns to a topic she discussed earlier in this chapter, hurry. Even when events in our lives seem to be spinning out of control, hurry and anxiety only exacerbate the situation. Haste indeed makes waste. Giving thanks is possible because we believe in an all-powerful God who always has things under His control. While most people would think that slow and urgent are contradictory concepts, Ann states that both are needed to live fully right where we are:
“. . . life is so urgent that it necessitates living slow. . . . Life at its fullest in this sensitive, detonating sphere, and it can be carried only in the hands of the unhurried and reverential- a bubble held in awe.”
