Gratitude in Christian preaching emphasizes a heart that recognizes and cherishes God's blessings, fostering joy and contentment (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Illustrations often contrast thankfulness with ingratitude, using images like the beauty of creation, the gift of old age, and the humble snail to show how gratitude enriches life and honors God.
Max DePree is a Christian and the chairman and CEO of Herman Miller, Inc., the furniture maker once named among FORTUNE magazine's 10 best managed and most innovative companies. In his book, LEADERSHIP IS AN ART, he answers the question, "What is leadership?" with this definition:
"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is the say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor."
Mother Teresa told this story in an address to the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994: [transposed to third person in sermon]
One evening we went out, and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the sisters, "You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks worst." So I did for her all that my love could do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand as she said two words only: "Thank you." Then she died.
I could not help but examine my conscience before her. And I asked: What would I say if I were in her place? And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said, "I am hungry, I am dying, I am in pain," or something. But she gave me much more; she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face.
Gratitude brings a smile and becomes a gift.
Is obedience what pleases God most? In the account of the ten lepers, nine of them obediently followed obeyed Jesus' command to go to the priest yet they were not commended by Jesus. The one who came back to express gratitude was the one commended.
True obedience is a response of gratitude toward the giver of the gift. It is gratitude in action. God's obedience is obedience that acts because the follower loves God and is not deathly afraid of him. The obedience that pleases God comes from the followers who know whom they love.
How you can keep going when you don’t see results.
Because she wanted to help, a nurse joined eighteen other medically trained people and journeyed to a poverty-stricken third-world country to help alleviate suffering. After working sixteen hours every day for two weeks, the clinic doors closed. Utterly exhausted, she headed toward the bus for home. Glancing up, she saw hundreds upon hundreds of sick and injured people waiting outside the clinic for treatment they would now never receive. She began to weep.
“Lord,” she cried, “we haven’t even made a dent in the need. What’s the use? Have we done any good at all?” As she turned to enter the bus, a hand tugged at her sleeve. There stood a man she scarcely recognized. Several days before his face had been distended and grotesque from a number of abscessed teeth, his feet so swollen with edema that he couldn’t put on his shoes. They’d given him antibiotics and later pulled the abscessed teeth. Now he stood before her - smiling, pain free, with shoes on his feet. He smiled widely, thrust a small bouquet of flowers into her hand, and said simply, “Thank you for saving my life.”
On the bus, she glanced out at the now dark harbor as a single light came on. Then another. And another. Until the other side of the harbor was ablaze with light. God whispered to her heart, “This is how you helped - by treating My little ones - one person at a time.”
The Sunday following the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, Ernie Ross worshipped at the Edmond American Baptist Fellowship in Edmond, Okla. Ross is employed in the composing room of "The Journal Record," housed at the time of the bomb blast across the street from the Alfred Murrah Federal Building. Only a plate glass window separated Ross and his co-workers from the explosion on April 19. Ross suffered severe facial cuts when the window shattered.
As he entered the Edmond church building on Sunday, Ross handed Pastor Charles Macrander a note which read:
My name is Ernie Ross. These are my children, Warden, Thomas and
Sara. I was in "The Journal Record" building at the bombing and
got out of the hospital on Thursday afternoon. I just wanted to
bring my children to church this morning to be with fellow
Christians and thank you for your prayers. Because I know that
without the grace, the love of God, I wouldn't be here. Thank you."
Ross has continued to worship with the Edmond American Baptist Fellowship and has joined others in writing personal notes of thanks to American Baptists in congregations across the U.S. who have prayed and sent gifts and notes of encouragement to those affected by the bombing.
Sermon in King David series. Costly Thanks. 2 Samuel 24:18-25
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OFFERINGS THAT COST ME NOTHING
==============================
I. Have you been blessed? 1 Cor 4:7-8
II. It can't cost nothing.
A. A fateful decision.
B. "Law of the Harvest" - Actions have consequences. 2 Sam 24:11
C. David's view - people are capricious, but God is merciful. 24:14
D. God doesn't come cheap. 24:24
III. What will you pay for your relationship with God?
A. David valued God more than reputation.
B. He valued God more than his wealth.
C. How much do YOU value God?
IV. What costly gratitude provides.
A. God is honored. 1 Chr 29:10
B. We gain proper perspective on our lives. 1 Chr 29:14-15
C. Others are motivated. 1 Chr 29:9
V. When we think thanks is too costly, consider what God paid.
#3418
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Gratitude: Twelve ways to cultivate a thankful heart. A continual attitude of gratitude is one sign of a soul crucified to pride and selfishness.
A. Foundation for Holiness.
B. Disciplines of the Grateful Heart.
1. Give thanks as a holy discipline independent of feelings.
2. Give thanks for the small and ordinary things.
3. Look for the hidden blessings.
4. Thank God especially in the midst of adversity.
5. Turn your attention from your problems to God's priorities in your life.
6. Give your attention and care to those whose lives make your particular
blessings stand out by comparison.
7. Set aside time daily to express thanks to God.
8. Thank God publicly and corporately.
9. Try a voluntary fast from something you take for granted.
10. Keep a record of God's faithfulness to you.
11. Show gratitude toward others as well as God.
12. Give generously to those in need.
#3865
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Sermon for Thanksgiving, 1996. Luke 17:11-18
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THANKS FOR NOTHING
==================
I. Holidays can bring out the worst in people.
A. A time to be stressed out.
B. Ingratitude to God is nothing new.
C. We're not like that.
II. How Jesus showed gratitude.
A. For common necessities of life. John 6:11,23
B. For answered prayer. John 11:41
C. For his death. Matt 26:27
III. The beauty of gratitude.
A. Thanksgiving focuses us beyond our own selfishness.
B. God expects us to praise him.
IV. Best way to give gratitude.
A. Believe in Jesus as your Savior.
B. Live as if Jesus is your Lord.
#3999
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Hand-written thank you notes have a powerful and lasting impact on both the sender and the receiver. Dr. Christian Jarrett, in The Science of Us, talked about a brain-scanning study published in NeuroImage, “which brings us a little closer to understanding why these [gratitude] exercises have these effects. The results suggest that even months after a simple, short gratitude writing task, people’s brains are still wired to feel extra thankful. The implication is that gratitude tasks work, at least in part, because they have a self-perpetuating nature: The more you practice gratitude, the more attuned you are to it and the more you can enjoy its psychological benefits.” These psychological benefits include a feeling of wellbeing and reduced depression.
________
Adapted from "Five Reasons To Write Thank-You Notes," by Nancy Olson, Forbes.com, January 22, 2017;
For some time I have had a person provide me with a rose boutonniere to pin on the lapel of my suit every Sunday. Because I always got a flower on Sunday morning, I really did not think much of it. It was a nice gesture that I appreciated but it became routine. One Sunday, however, what I considered ordinary became very special.
As I was leaving the Sunday service a young man approached me. He walked right up to me and said, "Sir, what are you going to do with your flower?" At first I did not know what he was talking about, but then I understood. I said, "Do you mean this?" as I pointed to the rose pinned to my coat.
He said, "Yes sir. I would like it if you are just going to throw it away." At this point I smiled and gladly told him that he could have my flower, casually asking him what he was going to do with it. The little boy, who was probably less than 10 years old, looked up at me and said, "Sir, I'm going to give it to my granny. My mother and father got divorced last year. I was living with my mother, but when she married again, she wanted me to live with my father. I lived with him for a while, but he said I could not stay, so he sent me to live with my grandmother. She is so good to me. She cooks for me and takes care of me. She has been so good to me that I want to give that pretty flower to her for loving me."
When the little boy finished I could hardly speak. My eyes filled with tears and I knew I had been touched in the depths of my soul. I reached up and unpinned my flower. With the flower in my hand, I looked at the boy and said, "Son, that is the nicest thing I have ever heard, but you can't have this flower because it's not enough. If you'll look in front of the pulpit, you'll see a big bouquet of flowers. Different families buy them for the church each week. Please take those flowers to your granny because she deserves the very best."
If I hadn't been touched enough already, he made one last statement and I will always cherish it. He said, "What a wonderful day! I asked for one flower but got a beautiful bouquet."
=====================
By Pastor John R. Ramsey from A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1995 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
"Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the
poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it."
-- A. W. Tozer in "Signposts"
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Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine
ctcurrmrj5TD0695B6r
*
We place so low an estimate on what we owe the Lord and our
obligations to the Church. We never stop to cavil at the high cost of
other things, but when the matter of divine obligation is placed upon
us, we complain, and too often fall down and miss the mark altogether.
The following from an exchange is proof of this fact:
In central Texas, a rich drover, whose son had committed murder,
engaged the best criminal lawyer that money could procure to defend
his boy. He was acquitted. The lawyer presented his bill. It was
staggering. The attorney said, "I hope you do not think it too large?"
"Oh, no, not at all," he responded. "You have saved my boy. I would
gladly have paid you twice the amount."
That winter a faithful pastor won that boy to Christ, and thus
saved him from a continuance in drunkenness and sin. When the pastor
asked the drover for a contribution toward the kingdom of God, his
thank offering was one dollar!
How much should we give to Him who saved us? -- SELECTED
By William Moses Tidwell, "Effective Illustrations."
Fulton Ousler, a famous author of many years ago, tells the story of his old black nurse, Anna Marie Cecily Sophi Virginia Avalon Thessalonians. She was present when his mother was born; she was there when Fulton Ousler was born. "I remember her," he says, "as she sat at the kitchen table in our house, the hard old brown hands folded across her starched apron, the glistening black eyes lifted to the white-washed ceiling, and the husky old whispering voice saying, `Much obliged, Lord, for my vittles.' `Ann,' I asked, `What's a vittle?' `It's what you got to eat and drink, that's vittles.' `But you'd get your vittles whether you thanked the Lord or not.' `Sure, but it makes everything taste better to be thankful.' After the meal she thanked the Lord again and then said, `You know, it's a funny thing about being thankful ... it's a game an old preacher taught me to play. It's looking for things to be thankful for. Many of them you pass right by ... unless you go looking for them ... Take this morning, I woke up and lay there wondering ... what I got to be thankful for now. And you know what, I couldn't think of anything to thank him for. ... But then from the kitchen comes the most delicious smell that ever tickled my nose--coffee. Much obliged, Lord, for the coffee, and much obliged, too, for the smell of it.'
Years passed and Ousler grew up, left home, and learned some of the hard lessons of life. One day he was called to Anna's bedside. She was dying. Ousler noticed her old hands were twisted with pain. He wondered what she had to be thankful for now. Just then she opened her eyes, looked at all the people around her bedside, closed her eyes again and said with a smile, "Much obliged, Lord, for such fine friends.'
In some parts of Mexico, there are hot springs and cold springs side by side. Great for washing clothes! Women bring them, boil in hot, rinse in cold. Tourist watching said to guide: "I'll bet they're pretty grateful to Mother Nature for these springs." Guide: "No señor, there is much grumbling because she provides no soap!"
I had been writing a newspaper column for almost 20 years. As part of my
work I had seen some of the darkest and unhappiest aspects of human nature,
and I had written about them. It was beginning to get to me.
There were nights when I would go home from work and question the very nature
of humanity, and wonder if there was any answer to the remitting cruelty I
was observing and writing about so often. Part of this had to do with a
particular case I had been covering. The case involved one of the worst
crimes I had ever encountered.
A beautiful, bright-eyed, four-year-old boy name Lattie McGee had been
systematically tortured over the course of a long Chicago summer. He had
been beaten, he had been starved, he had been hanged upside down in a locked
and darkened closet for nights on end.
All that summer his life dwindled agonizingly away in that closet, and no one
knew he was there; no one heard his muffled cries. After his death, when the
police discovered what had been done to him, I wrote column after column
about the people who had murdered him. So many cases of impoverished
children from forgotten neighborhoods get lost in the court system. I wanted
to make sure that Lattie McGee received justice, or something close to it.
With all the public interest in Lattie because of the columns, the story of
his brother, whose name was Cornelius Abraham, did not receive as much
attention. The same things that were done to Lattie were done to Cornelius,
too. Somehow he survived. He watched his brother slowly being killed and
was unable to stop the killers. Cornelius' brave testimony in court is what
helped to convict them.
By the end of the trial Cornelius had just turned nine. He was a thin,
extremely quiet boy; with his little brother dead and his mother and her
boyfriend in prison, he was living with other relatives. The two great loves
of his life were reading and basketball.
In one of the columns I had written about Lattie, I had mentioned Cornelius'
passion for basketball. Steve Schanwald, a vice president of the Chicago
Bulls, had read the column and left a message at my office.Though tickets to
Bulls' games were without exception sold out, Schanwald said that if
Cornelius would like to come to a game he would be sure there were tickets
available. Jim Bigoness, the Cook County assistant state's attorney who had
delicately prepared Cornelius' testimony for the trial, and I took him to the
game.
To every Chicago youngster who follows basketball, the stadium was a shrine.
Think of where Cornelius once was, locked up and tormented and hurt. And now
he was in the stadium, about to see his first Bulls game.
We walked down a stairway, until we were in a lower-level hallway.Cornelius
stood between us. Then a door opened and a man came out.Cornelius looked up,
and his eyes filled with a combination of wonder and awe and total disbelief.
Cornelius tried to say something; his mouth was moving but no words would
come out. He tried to speak and then the man helped out by speaking first.
"Hi, Cornelius," the man said. "I'm Michael Jordan."
Jordan knelt down and spoke quietly with Cornelius. He made some jokes and
told some stories about basketball and he didn't rush. You have to
understand - for a long time the only adults Cornelius had any contact with
were adults who wanted to hurt and humiliate him. And now Michael Jordan was
saying, "Are you going to cheer for us today? We're going to need it."
Jordan went back into the locker room to finish dressing for the game.
Bigoness and I walked Cornelius back upstairs to the court. There was one
more surprise waiting.
Cornelius was given a red shirt of the kind worn by the Bulls' ball boys. He
retrieved balls for the players from both teams as they warmed up.
Then, as the game was about to begin, he was led to Jordan's seat on the
Bulls' bench. That's where he was going to sit - right next to Jordan's
seat. During the minutes of the game when Jordan was out and resting,
Cornelius would be sitting with him; when Jordan was on the court, Cornelius
would be saving his seat for him. At one point late in the game Jordan took
a pass and sailed into the air and slammed home a basket. And there, just a
few feet away, was Cornelius Abraham, laughing out loud with joy.
I wanted to thank Jordan for taking the time to be so nice to Cornelius. The
meeting between them, I had learned, had been something that Jordan had
volunteered for; he had been aware of the Lattie McGee case, and when he had
heard that the Bulls were giving Cornelius tickets to the game, he had let it
be known that he was available.
After the game, in the locker room after the last sportswriter left, Jordan
got up to retrieve his gym bag and head for home. As he walked toward the
door of the locker room he saw me and stopped, and I said, "I just wanted to
tell you how much Cornelius appreciated what you did for him."
For a second I had the strange but undeniable impression that perhaps this
was a man who didn't get thanked all that often - or at least that there were
so many people endlessly lining up to beseech him for one thing or another
that all he was accustomed to was the long file of faces in front of him
wanting an autograph, a favor, a moment of his time, faces that would
immediately be replaced by more faces with more entreaties. He stood there
waiting, as if he was so used to ceaselessly being asked for things that he
thought my thanks on Cornelius' behalf might be the inevitable preface to
petitioning him for something else.
When I didn't say anything, he said, "That's why you came back down here?"
"Well I don't think you know how much today meant to Cornelius," I said.
"No, I'm just surprised that you came back down to tell me," he said.
"My mom would kill me if I didn't," I said, smiling. "She tried to raise me
right."
He smiled back, "Mine, too," he said.
We shook hands and I turned to leave and I heard him say, "Do you come out to
a lot of games?"
"First one," I said.
"Well, you ought to come back," he said.
-------------------------------------------------
By Bob Greene
from A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen,
Hanoch McCarty & Meladee McCarty
#4521
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[see correction at bottom]
A British family journeyed to Scotland for a summer vacation. The mother and father were looking forward to enjoying the beautiful Scottish countryside with their young son. But one day the son wandered off all by himself and got into trouble. As he walked through the woods, he came across an abandoned swimming hole, and as most boys his age do, he took off his clothes and jumped in. He was totally unprepared for what happened next. Before he had time to enjoy the pool of water, he was seized by a vicious attack of cramps. He began calling for help while fighting a losing battle with the cramps to stay afloat.
Luckily, it happened that in a nearby field a farm boy was working. When he heard the frantic cries for help, he brought the English boy to safety. The father whose son had been rescued was of course very grateful. The next day, he went to meet the youth who had saved his son's life. As the two talked, the Englishman asked the brave lad what he planned to do with his future. The boy answered, “Oh I suppose I'll be a farmer like my father.” The grateful father said, “Is there something else you'd rather do?” “Oh, yes!” answered the Scottish lad. “I've always wanted to be a doctor. But we are poor people and could never afford to pay for my education.” “Never mind that,” said the Englishman. “You shall have your heart's desire and study medicine. Make your plans, and I'll take care of the costs.” So, the Scottish lad did indeed become a doctor.
There is more. Some years later, in December of 1943, Winston Churchill became very ill with pneumonia while in North Africa. Word was sent to Sir Alexander Fleming, who had discovered the new wonder drug, penicillin, to come immediately. Flying in from England, Dr. Fleming administered his new drug to the ailing prime minister. In doing so, he saved Churchill's life for the second time. For it was the boy Winston Churchill whom Alexander Fleming had rescued from the swimming hole so many years before.
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From The Speakers Library of Business, from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Barry Spilchuk
==================================
Another version from the internet:
==================================
His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while working for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself.
Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.
The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy the farmer had saved. “I want to repay you,” said the nobleman. “You saved my son's life.” “No, I can't accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer.
At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel. “Is that your son?” the nobleman asked. “Yes,” the farmer replied proudly. “I'll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll grow to a man you can be proud of.” And that he did. In time, the farmer's son graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London and went on to become known throughout the world as Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.
Years afterward, the same nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin.
The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son? Sir Winston Churchill.
Someone once said: What goes around comes around. Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.
[see also #16414 for another version.]
=================================================================
Alas, this inspiring story may be fiction. The following is from http://winstonchurchill.org/ffleming.htm
DID SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING SAVE CHURCHILL'S LIFE?
The Churchill-Fleming Non-Connection: The story that Sir Alexander Fleming or his father (the renditions vary) saved Churchill’s life has been roaring around the Internet lately. We must have had fifty emails about it. Charming as it is, it is certainly fiction. The story apparently originated in WORSHIP PROGRAMS FOR JUNIORS, by Alice A. Bays and Elizabeth Jones Oakbery, published ca. 1950 by an American religious house, in a chapter entitled “The Power of Kindness.”
According to Bays/Oakbery, Churchill is saved from drowning in a Scottish lake by a farm boy named Alex. A few years later Churchill telephones Alex to say that his parents, in gratitude, will sponsor Alex’s otherwise unaffordable medical school education. Alex graduates with honours and in 1928 discovers that certain bacteria cannot grow in certain vegetable molds. In 1943 when Churchill becomes ill in the Near East, Alex’s invention, penicillin, is flown out to effect his cure. Thus once again Alexander Fleming saves the life of Winston Churchill.
Dr. John Mather writes: “A fundamental problem with the story is that Churchill was treated for this very serious strain of pneumonia not with penicillin but with 'M&B,’ a short name for sulfadiazine produced by May and Baker Pharmaceuticals. Since he was so ill, it was probably a bacterial rather than a viral infection as the M&B was successful.
“Kay Halle, in her charming book IRREPRESSIBLE CHURCHILL (Cleveland: World 1966) comments (p. 196) that Churchill 'delighted in referring to his doctors, Lord Moran and Dr. Bedford, as M&B.’ Then, when Churchill found that the most agreeable way of taking the drug was with whisky or brandy, he commented to his nurse: 'Dear nurse, pray remember that man cannot live by M and B alone.’ But there is no evidence in the record that he received penicillin for any of his wartime pneumonias. He did have infections in later life, and I suspect he was given penicillin or some other antibiotic that would have by then become available, such as ampicillin. Also, Churchill did consult with Sir Alexander Fleming on 27 June 1946 about a staphylococcal infection which had apparently RESISTED penicillin. See CHURCHILL: TAKEN FROM THE DIARIES OF LORD MORAN (Boston: Houghton Muffin 1966), p. 335.”
Official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert adds that the ages of Churchill and Fleming (or Fleming’s father) do not support the various accounts circulated; Alexander Fleming was seven years younger than Churchill. If he was plowing a field at say age 13, Churchill would have been 20. There is no record of Churchill nearly drowning in Scotland at that or any other age; or of Lord Randolph paying for Alexander Fleming’s education. Sir Martin also notes that Lord Moran’s diaries, while mentioning “M&B,” say nothing about penicillin, or the need to fly it out to Churchill in the Near East.
Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic.
One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face-lopsided from swelling, red and raw.
Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus ‘til morning.”
He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. “I guess it’s my face… I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments… “
For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”
I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag.
When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.
He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they’d be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!” Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.
Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse, As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “If this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!”
My friend changed my mind. “I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.”
She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” All this happened long ago — and now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.
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The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b)
I remember reading of a matron in charge of an institution that was
giving loaves of bread to the poor children who would gather at the
appointed time. As soon as the door was opened there would be one big
rush. All of the children except one little girl would try to get the
largest loaves that they could find, and then run on. After they were
gone the little girl would come up and pick up the loaf that the rest
had left then go past the matron and thank her for it. After watching
this for several days the matron made one loaf only about half as
large as the rest and placed a gold coin inside of it. The next day as
usual the rest of the children took all of the large loaves and left
the small one for the last little girl, who took it and thanked the
matron as usual without one word of complaint. When she got home the
invalid Christian mother cut the loaf for their day's meal. When she
found the coin, she hurriedly sent the little girl back to the matron
with the coin. When the girl returned with the assurance that it was
hers, they knelt to thank God who wonderfully provides.
By William Moses Tidwell, "Effective Illustrations."
Dean Buchanan tells overhearing a conversation in a checkout line. One man to another: "Hey, how ya doin'?" "Aw, just barely gittin' by!" "Yeah, I know just what you mean; things sure are bad." Dean B. said he happened to glance down at the shopping basket of the man who was "just barely gittin' by" and saw a good-sized sirloin steak, several dollars of junk food and a bag of dog food. Get real! We walk around in a dream world, materially speaking. a. USA with 5% of population has 85% of wealth. b. Half world's population lives on $300 annually. c. Cattle in USA get more grain than India + China! d. More fertilizer on golf courses than India farming! e. If you own a home--better off than 95% of world.
Accompanied by her five-year-old son, the lady came in the store to have her prescription filled. The pharmacist handed over to the woman her medicine, then gave a piece of candy to the little boy. "What do you say to the pharmacist?" prompted the mother. The little boy replied, "Charge it."
In 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday. It wasn't until 1942 that it was made a legal holiday -- the fourth Thursday of every November. It is interesting that both of these moves came when our nation was in the darkest days of two wars -- Civil War and World War II. The time to think of God and be thankful is not just in a time of crisis, but as a part of our everyday life.
Read: Psalm 105:1-7
Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! — Psalm 105:1
A little boy said, “Salt is what spoils potatoes when it is left out.” Using the same kind of negative definition, we can say, “Gratitude is what spoils life when it is left out.”
A disposition of continual thankfulness comes from an unshakable confidence in God’s wisdom, power, and goodness no matter what our circumstances may be. People who possess the quality of gratitude may be poor in this world’s goods, but they are truly rich spiritually.
Some of the most grateful people I know have few material possessions and little money in their bank accounts. A character in one of Charles Dickens’ stories remarks, “My not knowing at one meal where I shall get the next is a great help to thankfulness.”
Riches, on the other hand, may be a handicap. A wealthy woman told her doctor that she was frustrated by a restless desire to accumulate more and more things. He replied, “These are the usual symptoms of too much ease in the home and too little gratitude in the heart.”
No matter what your circumstances, count your blessings. Psalm 105 reminds us, “Give thanks to the Lord! … Remember His marvelous works” (vv.1,5). The salt of gratitude helps to make all of life taste better. — HVL
Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices. — Rinkart
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6874]
SOPHIE TALKS WITH GOD
Her grandson is playing in the water, while Sophie is standing on the beach not
wanting to get her feet wet, when all of a sudden, a huge wave appears from
nowhere and crashes directly over the spot where the boy is in the ocean. The
water recedes and the boy is no longer there. He simply vanished.
Sophie holds her hands to the sky and cries, "Lord, how could you? Have I not
been a wonderful mother and grandmother? Have I not given to Bnai Brith and
Haddasah? Have I not tried my very best to live a life that you would be proud
of?"
Just then, another huge wave appears out of nowhere and crashes on the beach.
As the water recedes, the boy is standing there, smiling, splashing around as if
nothing had happened.
A loud voice booms from the sky, "I have returned your grandson. Are you
satisfied?"
Sophie responds, "Well, he was wearing a hat."
Unthanked People
When William Stidger taught at Boston University, he once
reflected upon the great number of unthanked people in his life.
Those who had helped nurture him, inspire him or cared enough
about him to leave a lasting impression.
One was a schoolteacher he'd not heard of in many years.
But he remembered that she had gone out of her way to put a
love of verse in him, and Will had loved poetry all his life. He
wrote a letter of thanks to her.
The reply he received, written in the feeble scrawl of the
aged, began, "My dear Willie." He was delighted. Now over 50,
bald and a professor, he didn't think there was a person left in
the world who would call him "Willie." Here is a copy of that letter:
"My dear Willie,
I cannot tell you how much your note meant to me. I am
in my eighties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals,
lonely and, like the last leaf of autumn, lingering behind. You will
be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years and yours is
the first note of appreciation I ever received. It came on a
blue-cold morning and it cheered me as nothing has in many years."
Not prone to cry easily, Will wept over that note.
She was one of the GREAT UNTHANKED PEOPLE from
Will's past. You know them. We all do. The teacher who made a
difference. That coach we'll never forget. The music instructor or
Sunday school worker who helped us to believe in ourselves.
That scout leader who cared.
We all remember people who shaped our lives in various ways.
People whose influence changed us. Will Stidger found a way to show
his appreciation -- he wrote them letters.
Who are some of the unthanked people from your past? It may
not be too late to say, "Thanks."
Subject: Remembering to Say "Thank You!"
Date: For the Week of January 17, 2000
When Peter Cummings was a little boy, his mother told him how important it was to write thank-you notes. So it became second nature to him. And when he became chairman of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1998, he began writing personal notes to anyone contributing $500 or more to the orchestra.
His habit made news recently. When Mary Webber Parker donated $50,000 to the orchestra, Cummings sat down and composed a note to her. Two weeks later, she wrote back and promised another $50,000. Cummings wrote her again. The upshot of the exchanges was a donation of $500,000 a year for five years a most generous $2.5 million boon to the arts in Detroit.
All of us who have had mothers or mentors have been taught life's "little things" by them. But we tend to lose sight of them as we grow up, pursue our adult life goals, and focus on life's big things. We neglect them. Life grows a bit coarser. And we grump about today's young people and their lack of civility and good manners.
There's nobody to blame but ourselves. Quit pointing fingers at teenagers. Don't scold your own children or grandchildren. Instead, pay attention to the little things that collectively compose and define life. A good beginning point is gratitude.
Make it a point to today to thank someone for something. Whether a person you know well or a stranger you are likely never to see again, respond to the man or woman who renders you a service, helps you with a project, or makes your world a bit more pleasant with a smile. Don't do it in hopes of getting a Peter Cummings-like reward for being considerate or appreciative. Do it simply because it is right.
Does your wife or your husband start the morning coffee? Do you work for a good boss or have a loyal assistant? Do you like the way the laundry does your shirts? Do the people who service your car do it well? Does your Sunday School teacher do a good job with the class? Then say so to that person. Or tell that person's supervisor or his or her company president about it.
Even if you do nothing more than smile and nod to someone who holds a door for you or say thanks to the postman or UPS driver who delivers something to you, that moment of contact builds community. It affirms another human being. It connects two people who may never know each other's names.
Or maybe as with Peter Cummings there will be a reward in it for you. It could even be something more valuable than money. You could make a friend or become a partner with God in nourishing a soul made in his own image.
Yesterday’s troubles are written in sand,
Brushed out of existence by God’s own hand.
The things of the future, our hearts may fear
Can all be resolved when tomorrow is here.
Out of a lifetime, these hours alone-
The hours of today-are completely our own.
So as each sun is setting, there’s reason to say,
“Thanks, Lord for your gifts — above all for this day.”
You’re such a wonderful person,
Special in so many ways.
Deserving of so many blessings,
And only beautiful days.
So live every day to its fullest
Enjoy every moment it brings.
And ALWAYS, may GOD in his goodness,
Grant you life’s happiest things!
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #4556]
An American Indian one day asked Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple to give him two one-dollar bills for a two-dollar note. When asked why, the Indian replied, "One dollar for me to give to Jesus, and one dollar for my wife to give."
The Bishop asked him if it was all the money he had. He said, "Yes."
The Bishop was about to tell him it was too much, when an Indian clergyman who was standing by whispered, "It might be too much for a white man to give, but not too much for an Indian who has this year heard for the first time of the love of Jesus."
During World War II, a
fighter pilot bailed out into occupied France. His
life was saved by the courageous French people who sheltered him and
helped him escape. After the war was over, the pilot took all the money he
could scrape together and went back to Normandy to look for the people who
had helped him. Of the twenty people who had risked their lives for him,
he found nineteen. One had been killed in the final fighting. The pilot
brought food and clothing which these people sorely needed and did everything he
possibly could to show them his gratitude for saving his life. the Christian Way> by Vernon O. Elmore p.13
When Billy Graham was driving through a small southern town, he was
stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his
quilt, but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in
court. The judge asked, "Guilty, or not guilty?" When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, "That'll be ten dollars
-- a dollar for every mile you went over the limit." Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister. "You have violated
the law," he said. "The fine must be paid -- but I am going to pay it
for you." He took a ten dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it
to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! "That," said Billy Graham, "is how God treats repentant sinners!"
Progress Magazine, December 14, 1992
Years ago, my father coached a team of eight-year-olds. He had a few
excellent players, and some who just couldn't get the hang of the
game. Dad's team didn't win once all season. But in the last inning of the
last game, his team was only down by a run.
There was one boy who had never been able to hit the ball--or catch
it. With two outs, it was his turn to bat. He surprised the world and
got a single! The next batter was the team slugger. Finally, Dad's players might win
a game. The sluger connected, and as the boy who hit the single ran to
second, he saw the ball coming toward him. Not so certain of
baseball's rules, he caught it. Final out! Dad's team lost! Quickly, my father told his team to cheer. The boy beamed. It never
occurred to him that he lost the game. All he knew was he had hit the
ball and caught it--both for the first time. His parents later thanked my dad. Their child had never even gotten in
a game before that season. We never told the boy exactly what happened. We didn't want to ruin it
for him. And till this day, I'm proud of what my father did that
afternoon. Quoted by Jeffrey Zaslow in "Tell Me All About It," 1990
It is gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket.
Many years before, in October, 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life. Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean...
For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark... ten feet long. But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred.
In Captain Eddie's own words, “Cherry [that was the B-17 pilot, Captain William Cherry] read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off.” Now this is still Captain Rickenbacker talking... “Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food... if I could catch it.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull.
Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. You know that Captain Eddie made it. And now you also know... that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset... on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast... you could see an old man walking... white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp to feed the gulls... to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle... like manna in the wilderness.
________
“The Old Man and the Gulls” from Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" by Paul Aurandt, 1977, quoted in Heaven Bound Living, Knofel Stanton, Standard, 1989, p. 79-80
God Came Near, Max Lucado, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 155
==================
Another version from PreachingNow newsletter, 10/6/09:
In a recent issue of his Friday Evening devotional newsletter, Tom Barnard includes this story: Eddie Rickenbacker was a fighter pilot and Ace in World War I. His life was a kaleidoscope of events centered around airplanes and cars. He accumulated more than 300 hours in combat flying during the First World War and had more than 20 “victories” (where he survived and an enemy pilot did not). Later he was awarded the highest honors for bravery in battle by the United States and France.
During World War II, he served as a consultant to the military in England, as well as the United States. In October 1942, he was sent on a tour of the Pacific theater to deliver a secret message to General Douglas MacArthur. After visiting bases in Hawaii, his plane -- a B-17 Flying Fortress -- was en route to another military base in the Pacific when navigation failure caused the plane to stray miles off course, eventually losing fuel and forcing the pilots to crash-land into the rough seas of the Pacific Ocean.
Amazingly, the crew of eight survived the crash, but with injuries -- one fatally. They made it aboard their life raft, but with very few provisions. Their food and water supply was exhausted in three days. The crew fought the sun, weather and sharks. They needed a miracle.
On the eighth day, the crew had an impromptu devotional service, praying for a miracle. Time dragged by very slowly. Trying to take a nap, Rickenbacker pulled his military cap over his nose. Suddenly, he felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull. He carefully reached up and captured the gull. It wasn’t much of a meal for the men, but it was something. After devouring most of the bird, they used the intestines for bait, with which they caught fish and survived until they were rescued -- after 24 days at sea.
Years later, Billy Graham asked Rickenbacker to share the story of his life-threatening experience and the events that led up to his affirming faith in Christ. Eddie said, “I have no explanation except that God sent one of His angels to rescue us.” God answered their prayers by sending an angel in the form of a seagull.
Do you sometimes feel like you are adrift in a sea of frustration and hopelessness, praying for a miracle but only seeing endless sea and insufficient provisions for the trip? Pray to God for a miracle. Pray for an angel of the Lord to locate you and deliver you. His angels are always near. Watch for them.
Years ago a wealthy English family was entertaining friends at their
home. As the children swam one ventured into the deep water and began to drown. The gardner heard the other children screaming and jumped into the water and saved the child. The youngsters name was Winston Churchill. Deeply grateful to the gardner, the parents asked how they could ever repay him. He hesitated, but then said "I wish my son could go to college comeday to be a doctor. "He will" said Churchhill's parents. "We will pay his way." Years later when Sir Winston was Prime Minister, he became ill with pneumonia. The best physician the king could find was called to the bedside of the ailing leader. His name Sir Alexander Flemming, the developer of penecillin and the son of that Gardner who long ago saved a drowning Winston. Churchill later said, "Rarely has a man owed his life twice to the same person." As believers we owe a debt of gratitude and service to the Lord because He made and He saved us.
During a Thanksgiving message, I preached on the need for Christians
to be thankful in everything. I reiterated how that God has our best
interest at heart and that all things do work together for the good. I
had just been blessed with free body work on my old car and it was
looking brand new. Two days after the Thanksgiving message I hit a
deer on a back road to my home. My car was dented and I was heart
broke. I was pounded with my own words just a few days before to be
thankful in all things. I wrote these words and testified in church on
the next Sunday of God's goodness. Let me be thankful: first, because
I have never hit a deer before, second, because although it (the deer)
dented my car it did not dent my head, third, because although my car
had just been fixed, it is an old car and not a new one,fourth,
because although I killed a deer, I did not kill my "dear" (my wife
was riding with me),and last, because someone is eating good today. Submitted by Pastor Shelton Cole
"Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
_Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 148.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous; he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
- Mark Twain
_Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 149
"There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it."
- Seneca
- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 149
A lady was on a lake steamer when her little girl fell overboard, and she was almost frantic. A gentleman on the boat had a large Newfoundland dog. The dog was directed to leap into the water and save the child. He did so and swam ashore with the little girl, part of her dress in his mouth, I suppose. The mother seized her saved child, and kissed her again and again. Then turning to the dog, she hugged and kissed that dog, with a heart full of gratitude to the animal.
That's more than some people have ever done for Jesus Christ, although He hung on the cross to save them from sin and hell.
William Moses Tidwell, “Pointed Illustrations.”
#9923
*
It is said that a poverty-stricken old lady in Europe was
complaining that her son in America, who was very wealthy, was very
cruel and ungrateful. "Does he never send you any money?" she was
asked. "Never a penny," she replied. "He sends me some pictures quite
often, but I do not need pictures; I need money." The friend said, "Do
you have any of these pictures?" "Oh, yes, I have them all. They are
in the old Bible." When examined, the "pictures" were found to be
fifty- and hundred-dollar bills, all new and fresh! Pathetic! Starving
with abundance in hand.
So it is with many. God has abundant grace for all, but they fail
to recognize it.
William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."
AN ASS congratulated a Horse on being so ungrudgingly and carefully provided for, while he himself had scarcely enough to eat and not even that without hard work. But when war broke out, a heavily armed soldier mounted the Horse, and riding him to the charge, rushed into the very midst of the enemy. The Horse was wounded and fell dead on the battlefield. Then the Ass, seeing all these things, changed his mind, and commiserated the Horse.
We should always count our blessings before complaining to the Lord.
AN ASS, belonging to an herb-seller who gave him too little food and
too much work made a petition to God to be released from his present
service and provided with another master. God, after warning him that
he would repent his request, caused him to be sold to a tile-maker.
Shortly afterwards, finding that he had heavier loads to carry and
harder work in the brick-field, he petitioned for another change of
master. God, telling him that it would be the last time that he could
grant his request, ordained that he be sold to a leather maker. The
Ass found that he had fallen into worse hands, and noting his master's
occupation, said, groaning: "It would have been better for me to have
been either starved by the one, or to have been overworked by the
other of my former masters, than to have been bought by my present
owner, who will even after I am dead take my skin and turn it into
leather."
We should be careful what we pray for. Indeed, this is the main
reason why God doesn't answer all our prayers. If He did, we would
eternally regret our answered prayers. Consequently, we should be
content and grateful with what God gives us.
A PEASANT found an Eagle captured in a trap, and much admiring the
bird, set him free. The Eagle did not prove ungrateful to his
deliverer, for seeing the Peasant sitting under a wall which was not
safe, he flew toward him and with his talons snatched a bundle from
his head. When the Peasant rose in pursuit, the Eagle let the bundle
fall again. Taking it up, the man returned to the same place, to find
that the wall under which he had been sitting had fallen to pieces;
and he marveled at the service rendered him by the Eagle.
Christians have a lot to be grateful for: Jesus Christ suffered and
died for their sins. Have you thanked God lately?
AN ANT went to the bank of a river to quench its thirst, and being
carried away by the rush of the stream, was on the point of drowning.
A Dove sitting on a tree overhanging the water plucked a leaf and let
it fall into the stream close to her. The Ant climbed onto it and
floated in safety to the bank. Shortly afterwards a birdcatcher came
and stood under the tree, and laid his lime-twigs for the Dove, which
sat in the branches. The Ant, perceiving his design, stung him in the
foot. In pain the birdcatcher threw down the twigs, and the noise
made the Dove take wing.
When you help others, you will most likely be helped too. However,
Christ said it best when He said, "Do unto others as you would like
them do unto you."
A LION, roaming through a forest, trod upon a thorn. Soon afterward
he came up to a Shepherd and fawned upon him, wagging his tail as if
to say, "I am a suppliant, and seek your aid." The Shepherd boldly
examined the beast, discovered the thorn, and placing his paw upon his
lap, pulled it out; thus relieved of his pain, the Lion returned into
the forest. Some time after, the Shepherd, being imprisoned on a
false accusation, was condemned "to be cast to the Lions" as the
punishment for his imputed crime. But when the Lion was released from
his cage, he recognized the Shepherd as the man who healed him, and
instead of attacking him, approached and placed his foot upon his
lap. The King, as soon as he heard the tale, ordered the Lion to be
set free again in the forest, and the Shepherd to be pardoned and
restored to his friends.
When you help others, you will be most likely helped too, and do unto
others as you would like them to do unto you.
Away near Stonehaven a Norwegian vessel was caught in the storm, and the coast guard vessel came out and they did their best, but it did not save the men, and all night they struggled in that surging ocean, clinging to the rigging, nothing but death before them. They watched the morning dawn. How slowly the stars withdrew their shinning. How slowly the gray light crept from headland to headland. And the coast guard are out on the shore, and after some hours' work the poor Norwegians, wet and dripping, are brought from the shroud of the vessel, and when they got ashore what do you think they did, those hardy seamen? They knelt down, every one of them, before they thanked the coast guard men, and with clasped hands and uplifted eyes they thanked God for their deliverance.
I think some of us, when we are rescued by the heavenly coast guardsmen, will thank God for our deliverance. I think in the storm God sends out an advance steamer to bring us in. When we feel the pavement of heaven beneath us -- solidity instead of the swelling surge of the sea -- I think we will thank God. A burst of praise will go up from our hearts at the feeling of our safety -- at being home at last.
By J. Wilbur Chapan, “Present Day Parables.”
One evening several years ago, Sydney Harris of the Chicago Daily News and a Quaker friend walked up to a newsstand. The Quaker bought a paper, then thanked the vendor politely. The vendor didn’t so much as acknowledge his thanks.
“Sullen fellow, isn’t he?” Harris remarked.
“I’ve been buying my papers from him for years, and he never responds,” the Quaker quietly replied.
“Why, then, do you continue to be polite to him?” Harris asked.
The Quaker’s answer was revealing. “Why should I let him determine how I act?”
*
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #9597]
Thank you. Two words that indicate recognition and express appreciation of a kindness received from a source outside of ourselves. Thus it was in 1621 that the Pilgrims took time out from the busy task of survival to offer a “thank you” to the ultimate outside source -- God.
While I am sure they were appreciative to the natives who had befriended them, the first English settlers -- in what would come to be known as America -- paused for several days of feasting, reflection and prayer dedicated to God. They celebrated his goodness, they remembered his faithfulness and they expressed with their lips a harmonious “thank you.”
Despite the best efforts of some to paint the first thanksgiving with a politically correct brush, the Indians were not the focus of the Pilgrims' gratitude. The Native Americans were included in the feast and recognized for their assistance to be sure, but it was God who was supremely “thanked.” The fruits of the earth were enjoyed, but Mother Nature was never mentioned during the days of thanksgiving.
In a letter dated Dec. 12, 1621, Edward Winslow described the Pilgrims' three days of celebration. One phrase in the letter -- sprinkled with references and praise to God -- is most poignant. It reads, “And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
In the 381 years since that first “thanksgiving,” our nation has many times followed the example set by the Pilgrims. In 1777 the Continental Congress declared December 18 to be a national “day of solemn Thanksgiving and praise” in response to a victory during the revolution. George Washington proclaimed Nov. 26, 1789 to be “to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of the Almighty...”
It was Abraham Lincoln who, in 1863, proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be a national Thanksgiving Day for a year full of blessings. In the proclamation the president wrote: “The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.”
Each of Lincoln's successors followed his lead and proclaimed Thanksgiving Day the final Thursday in November. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving. Thus, following in the noble example of the Pilgrims, America has sought to honor God annually with a day of Thanksgiving.
In the past four decades, there has been a concerted effort to expunge any reference to God from public life. Prayer in school, the Pledge of Allegiance and displays of the Ten Commandments have raised the ire of those who are “offended” by any utterance of God's name in connection with a government facility. Given time, Thanksgiving and Christmas will join the “hit list.” These holidays, dedicated wholly to the worship of a particular deity, will be forced to conform to sterile politically correct standards or they too will be vehemently attacked.
Before the meaning of Thanksgiving is neutered and the reality of Christmas is castrated, may those who care about the heritage of our nation consider the words of President John Adams, who wrote: “[T]hat [the citizen] shall call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before him with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of his Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come...” (Thanksgiving Proclamation -- March 6, 1799).
_____________
Boggs is pastor of Valley Baptist Church, McMinnville, Oregon.
*
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1549]
The virtues were invited once
To banquet with the Lord of All;
They came--the great ones rather grim,
And not so pleasant as the small.
They talked and chatted o'er the meal;
They even laughed with temperance glee;
And each one knew the other well,
And all were good as good could be.
Benevolence and Gratitude
Alone of all seemed strangers yet;
They stared when they were introduced;
On earth they never once had met."
No one who was old enough to take it in will ever forget September 11, 2001. We see passenger jets flying out of a clear September morning, the flashes of flame, the destruction, the death, and the valiant acts of heroism. It is well to remember and to mourn the victims this day. But let me raise the question of why we memorialize those who have sacrificed for us. What's our object in doing so?
The answer is gratitude. As we mourn and remember the sacrifices of those who went before us, we ourselves, out of gratitude for what they did, commit ourselves to defend those values for which they died -- principles we hold so dear: freedom and human dignity.
Gratitude: John Calvin said gratitude was at the center of the Christian life, and G. K. Chesterton called it "the mother of all virtues." It was gratitude for living in a free country that caused me to put on the uniform of a United States Marine officer during the Korean War. We do our duty to our country out of gratitude for those who went before us to defend the liberties we hold so precious.
I love the scene at the end of the movie SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Ryan, who is now seventy years old, returns to Normandy, and he is looking at the grave marker of Captain Miller, the man who died to save him during World War II. Ryan is on his knees. The grave marker is a stark, white cross. He addresses Miller, now long dead: "I've tried every day to live up to what you did for me ... I hope I've lived a life worthy of your sacrifice."
On this anniversary of the attacks, we ought to be looking at the sacrifices people made for us and asking ourselves whether we are living lives worthy of their sacrifices.
In addition to gratitude and duty, we remember because good can come out of those vicious terrorist attacks. It is, of course, a biblical principle that God works through human suffering, tragedies, and defeats -- sometimes to do His greatest work.
These acts of war served as a wake-up call. There was a lot of utopian discussion going on in the nineties about how Western liberal democracy had won the great ideological contest for the twentieth century. We forgot this is a dangerous world and that evil is real. Now we know better, and even the postmodernist has to agree there is evil.
And just as the great World War II generation saved the world from Hitler's evil, so this generation must become great for this moment. It is our calling to be great in defense of liberty and freedom and human rights, to defend good against evil today.
The war on terrorism is, by its nature, slow and treacherous. We must not allow ourselves to become discouraged or fatigued.
On this September 11, after looking back with gratitude, we need to look ahead. Our hope lies in our resolve to do our duty that our gratitude inspires. Our hope lies in the lessons we have learned for the future. And our hope lies in our confidence in a sovereign God -- that in the end, right will prevail, that civilization can be preserved, and that America and her allies, in defense of freedom and in opposition to evil, will triumph.
And just like that scene in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, let us also this day look at the cross as Ryan did. May we live lives worthy of the supreme sacrifice Christ made for us.
FURTHER READING & INFORMATION
BreakPoint's "9/11 Worldview Resource Kit" answers questions many Americans are asking. It includes Timothy George's book IS THE FATHER OF JESUS THE GOD OF MUHAMMAD?, Chuck Colson's WHEN NIGHT FELL ON A DIFFERENT WORLD: HOW NOW SHALL WE LIVE?, and a "BreakPoint Weekend Special" CD including two interviews with Chuck Colson recorded after September 11 and a year later.
"A Fact Sheet on Just War Theory," BREAKPOINT ONLINE, 3 December 2001. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Home/A+Fact+Sheet+on+Just+War+Theory.htm
"Making Biblical Sense of This National Tragedy: Learning from the Events of September 11, 2001," BREAKPOINT ONLINE, 2001. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Home/Making+Biblical+Sense+of+This+National+Tragedy.htm
"Comforting Children in a Time of Crisis: A reading list for children in the wake of terror," BREAKPOINT ONLINE, 2001. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Home/Comforting+Children+in+a+Time+of+Crisis.htm
BreakPoint commentary no. 020703, "Exhausted and Elated: A Just War Justly Fought." http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Exhausted+and+Elated.htm
BreakPoint commentary no. 020530, "'Love Our Enemies' or 'An Eye for an Eye'?: The Morality of War." http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Love+Our+Enemies+or+An+Eye+for+an+Eye.htm
BreakPoint commentary no. 020327, "Hating War while Loving the Warrior: A New Kind of War Film." http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Hating+War+While+Loving+The+Warrior.htm
Peggy Noonan, "A Heart, a Cross, a Flag: What Arose from the Ashes," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6 September 2002. [see HolwickID #18012]
Adam Keiper, "Commemorating Attacks: Pearl Harbor and Now," NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, 6 September 2002. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-keiper090602.asp
Peter L. Bergen, "Portrait of the Enemy," BOOK WORLD, WASHINGTON POST, 8 September 2002, BW03. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43692-2002Sep5.html
Amitai Etzioni, "American Society in the Age of Terrorism," The Communitarian Network, September 2002. http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/pop_AmericanSociety.html
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Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
The rumpled, brown-paper package was addressed simply to "Monsieur Kipling." Rudyard Kipling, celebrated British author and Nobel Prizewinner, opened it, his curiosity piqued by the painstaking scrawl. Inside was a red box containing a French translation of his novel Kim - pierced by a bullet hole that stopped at the last 20 pages. Through the hole, tied with string, dangled the Maltese Cross of the Croix de Guerre, France's medal for bravery in war.
The book had been sent by a young French soldier, Maurice Hamonneau. He explained in a letter that had Kim not been in his pocket when he went into battle, he would have been killed. Hamonneau asked Kipling to accept the book and medal as a token of gratitude. Kipling felt more moved than he had been by any other honor he'd received. Through him, God had spared the life of this soldier.
Submitted by: ThomasMcCue
Email address: NYCTVA@AOL.com
One stormy night many years ago, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia. Trying to get out of the rain, the couple approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night. "Could you possibly give us a room here?" the husband asked. The clerk, a friendly man with a winning smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town. "All of our rooms are taken," the clerk said. "But I can't send a nice couple like you out into the rain at one o'clock in the morning. Would you perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It's not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night."
When the couple declined, the young man pressed on. "Don't worry about me; I'll make out just fine," the clerk told them. So the couple agreed. As he paid his bill the next morning, the elderly man said to the clerk, "You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States. Maybe someday I'll build one for you." The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh. As they drove away, the elderly couple agreed that the helpful clerk was indeed exceptional, as finding people who are both friendly and helpful isn't easy.
Two years passed. The clerk had almost forgotten the incident when he received a letter from the old man. It recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip ticket to New York, asking the young man to pay them a visit.
The old man met him in New York, and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. He then pointed to a great new building there, a palace of reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky.
"That," said the older man, "is the hotel I have just built for you to manage."
"You must be joking," the young man said.
"I can assure you I am not," said the older man, a sly smile playing around his mouth.
The older man's name was William Waldorf Astor, and the magnificent structure was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The young clerk who became its first manager was George C. Boldt.
This young clerk never foresaw the turn of events that would lead him to become the manager of one of the world's most glamorous hotels. The Bible says that we are not to turn our backs on those who are in need, for we might be entertaining angels.
And the lesson is..........treat everyone with love, grace and respect, and you cannot fail!
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