Is there anything God cannot do?

Theologians and philosophers tell us God can't create logically contradictory things, like square circles or rocks heavier than He can lift. Thanks for the help.

Seriously, is there anything God cannot do?

Whether He "can't" because He has chosen to limit himself or because these things simply can't be done, I believe there are certain character qualities God can't create in us.

For example, during the unique annual season of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we are reminded how important it is to be grateful people. But ironically, God cannot make us grateful.

Sure, there are tons of verses in Scripture commanding us to be grateful. And there are multitudes of reasons why gratitude should be our immediate response. But Scripture never says anything like, "God will pour out His spirit of thanksgiving into your heart."
So if gratitude is that important, but God can't make us grateful, then how do you become a grateful person?

One of the biggest misconceptions about gratitude is that it is caused by pleasant circumstances. "If something good happens to me, then I will feel thankful."

Wrong.

This is clearly not the case, according to Scripture. Hundreds of thousands of Israelites were miraculously delivered from slavery and fed in the desert, but 99.9999 percent of them were gripey rather than grateful. Nine out of 10 miraculously healed lepers never came back to Jesus to say thanks, according to Scripture.

So if God's wonderful blessings can't even make you grateful, then how do you become a grateful person? The answer is simple, but you may have to love cake frosting to really understand.

I have learned a major lesson about gratitude through my years of attending wedding receptions, where they traditionally serve wedding cake. There is an indescribable sense of elation that comes after you wait in a long line for your piece of cake -- and there it is! Not just a piece of cake with frosting on it, but a corner piece! With a flower on it!

That moment is unequaled in life. On a cake with only four corner pieces out of 100 slices, that I should ever get a corner piece ... why, it's like winning the lottery! Because as any frosting lover knows, the cake is nothing. The cake is boring. The cake is merely the delivery system for the frosting.

And so frosting has become my doorway into becoming a grateful person.

As a pastor I have performed scores of weddings, and due to my pastoral responsibilities, I know what it is to go without frosting. I know what it is to wade through a sweaty ceremony, wait through the slow reception line and the interminably long photo session, then wait again in line in the dank church basement well behind all the other frosting lovers -- my competitors -- who abscond with the precious corner pieces, leaving me standing heartbroken before the dismantled wedding cake and holding a pathetic 1-inch square of dry cake topped by a paper-thin layer of frosting that must have been spread by some instrument used by microbiologists doing stem cell research under electron microscopes.

So whenever I get a corner piece, my response is pure gratitude.

Now you might be thinking that I am contradicting myself. Doug, you were arguing that gratitude is not produced by blessed circumstances. Now it sounds like you're saying that when you get frosting, you get grateful.

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that when I get frosting when I don't expect to get frosting I get grateful.

It all has to do with what you expect or what you think you've got coming to you. Although it took me a few years to grow up, I have come to recognize that I don't deserve frosting. No one owes it to me. I have not earned frosting, and it is not mine by divine rights. So when I get it, I am startled by the unexpected, undeserved pleasure of frosting. And I am grateful.

To become a grateful person, you've got to hunger passionately for life's frosting while at the same time believing deeply in your heart that you don't deserve it.

Scientific study would probably show that the nine out of 10 lepers thought they deserved the frosting of healing. That's why they didn't say thanks.

God can't make you stop thinking life owes you breaks, blessings and benefits. But if you would let go of expecting your just desserts, you'd find one other thing God can't do. He can't make cake without plenty of frosting.