What I Learned about Gratefulness

I'm reading this book, "The Revival of Religious Sciences" by one Imam Ghazalli, and I'm at the section regarding gratefulness. Now gratefulness (towards God), I always thought, meant to be thankful for what He has sent/given/saved me from/etc. As I read though, it turns out this is not entirely true. According to the Imam (with some Hadith's for support), proper gratefulness encompasses a few different things.

The first and most basic form of gratefulness is the knowledge that everything comes from God. The Imam sites a hadith that said:

One day, the Prophet Moses said in his invocation: O God, you have created Adam. How has he expressed gratefulness to you? God said: He knew that everything came from Me.

Throughout the book, the Imam says a lot of things about achieving (essentially) enlightenment, and while it still kind of baffles me, I think I'm starting to understand. Part of achieving this "enlightenment" is being able to, without stopping to think about it, immediately recognize that everything comes from God. Now, before you say "Well, duh." let me give you a simple example.

Someone gives you a present, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Probably "SWEET! This person's giving me a present!" Followed shortly after by "Thanks!" then, if you aren't too wrapped up in your present, a "Thanks God!"

From what I understand, it should be more like "SWEET! God sent this person to give me a present! Thanks God!" in the split second before saying "Thanks!" to the person.

There was a short story in here that said a woman while walking, tripped and fell. The first thing she said was "All praise and thanks are for God". The narrator asked her why she exclaimed that, to which she responded that by tripping and falling, God might forgive some of her sins. Being able to do that on cue is probably one of those steps to "enlightenment".

The next thing a person must do, from what I read, is use gifts for their intended purposes and for purposes that bring one closer to God, and not to neglect gifts. Remember that "gift" pretty much refers to anything; an iPhone, your arms or legs, a donors kidney, the flu, and so on. This is pretty much straightforward. If you gave a little race car toy to your younger brother, or a barbie to your little sister, and you found them using the race car as a door stop, or putting the barbie in the microwave, wouldn't you be a little bit ticked? Probably throw around terms like, ungrateful and brat? Yeah, I would too. So wouldn't it make sense that if we misuse our arms, legs, kidneys, or technology that God has gifted us with, He might feel that we're ungrateful for them?

So gratefulness:
To acknowledge in mind and body that all things are from God.