The attitude of Gratitude
Wednesday 9th July
At one time there was a radio program called ”Job Center of the Air.” The host said that of the 2,500 people he helped find employment, only 10 sent thank-you notes. He was surprised and somewhat hurt.
Jesus healed 10 lepers and only one of those turned back to him to thank him. Jesus asked a searching question. ”Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”
Do we have the attitude of gratitude? Do we thank God every day for all the blessings that He has bestowed upon us?
Some of us seem to take for granted the goodness of our Heavenly Father. We don’t think much about our eyes until we face blindness. Our hearing is an accepted fact until we begin to lose it. Those who can run and jump do not realize what it is like not to walk.
No doubt Zacharias had taken his ability to hear and speak for granted until the angel struck him deaf and dumb for nine months.
The spiritual gifts we receive from God are even more important than our physical ones. To think that the Lord has called us out of all the teeming billions of people living on this planet should fill us with overwhelming gratitude. Jesus has told us that none can come to him except the Father which had sent him draw him.
Since we have been drawn, called and invited to live and reign forever with His son on this earth, we ought never to take this for granted,
Do we act like we are thankful? Paul writes to the Romans about some who, ”When they knew God, they glorified him not as God neither were thankful.” On the other hand, Paul exhorts us to ”let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body and be ye thankful.”
One of the ways we can show thankfulness to God is by the way we show thankfulness to one another. By the way we treat each other we are showing Him that we love Him because we love His other children.
A retired school teacher in her eighties was overjoyed to get a letter from a former student thanking her for her role in his life. She responded immediately: ”I can’t tell you how much your letter meant to me. You will be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years and yours is the first note of appreciation I have ever received. It filled me with cheer.”
How sad that out of the hundreds or thousands of students this lady taught only one said, ”thank you.” And that one waited until she was in her eighties. What if she had died the year before?
Are there kind thoughts we have meant to express but haven’t? Are there kind deeds we have meant to do but haven’t? Do it now. ”Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” Do it now.
If we are the recipient of a kind word or deed, please remember to say ”thank you.” But if we are the doer of the kind word or deed, do it whether they say thank you or not, for Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father ”is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful.”