Gratitude Is An Attitude
The scenario I am about to describe is very familiar to those of us who have had the unique pleasure of raising small children.
We
are at the annual Christmas gathering at grandma’s house and it is that joyous
time in which we open the presents around the tree.
Of course, most of the gifts are to the young children, who have already
surpassed their limit of expectations when Santa Claus came to visit earlier in
day. These gifts don’t pack the
Christmas “punch” that the Santa gifts did, and we are very concerned that
our children won’t show the proper gratitude to their respective uncles and
aunts. Our youngest son opens a
gift, a board game from Aunt Sally.
“What do you say?” we ask our little David.
“Thank yoooou,” he says, with about as much sincerity as I would show when
given a shot at the doctor’s office.
Now its Mary’s turn, who tears into a package with a stuffed dog.
She looks at it briefly, smiles a little, and goes for the next gift.
“Mary,” we quietly say so as not to call attention to ourselves, “Aren’t
you forgetting something?”
“What? Did I miss a present?”
“No,” we whisper with desperate urgency, “You forgot to say thank you, and
you need to hug grandma’s neck.”
“Now don’t you worry about that,” says grandma, who obviously overheard to
our dismay. “You know they are so
excited this time of year.”
We
smile weakly and once again vow to go back over the rules of gratitude with our
wonderful, young, spoiled children. We
are embarrassed, but we are also concerned.
We want our children to grow up and be genuinely appreciative for what
they have.
Have you been there? If not, you are
going to go there!
You know, one of the problems with the above thinking is that true gratitude is
more of an attitude than it is an action. It
is really hard to make someone thankful…it seems it sorta has to come
naturally, from the inside.
I
love the holiday of Thanksgiving. It
is a holiday we have kept pure in our society.
It is pretty much what it has always been, a time of thanks and a time of
family. We have so much to be
thankful for and yet for us to be truly thankful, we have to go to the foot of
the cross. We need to look up and
see the Son of God dying for our sins...we need to feel the love of God that
would trade the righteousness of His Son for the faults and failures of our
lives. It is there at the cross that
God’s grace changes us from the inside out… that our hearts are transformed
from worship of self to thanks to God through Christ.
True gratitude is a gift, the by- product serving Christ, who lives in us
and through us and who gives our life meaning.
It is an attitude that naturally comes when we respond to what Christ has
done for us.
I
hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, a joyous time with family and friends.
You are special, for God sent His Son to die for you and to live in
you…and when Christ lives in us, no one has to tell us to say “Thank you.”
Thanks be to God.
In Christ,
Billy