Monday, June 16, 2014

I Have to Confess, I Am A Glass Is Half Full Kind Of Person...

November 23, 2013


“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”  --  John F Kennedy

This weekend we mark the 50th anniversary of an event that shook American notions of stability and prominence.  The assassination of an American President.  And just like that fateful day, we are less than a week from a very American Holiday, Thanksgiving.  I wonder as I see and hear unrest on so many newscasts over this political opinion or that, “Have we come very far in this country?”  Dialogue seems to be drowned out by demagoguery on both sides, and there seems to be little interest in actually seeking for solutions to difference of viewpoints.  I don’t share these thoughts because of a sense that all is lost, but rather because I know that it isn’t.  Just as 50 years ago families and communities found renewed reason to be thankful for the good things in life as they were reminded of its fragile nature; we have good reason to identify and give thanks for that which is good in our lives… and that can be a catalyst for real renewal and change in our lives, communities, and nation.

When we begin to have thankful hearts we can realize that just like a magnet tied to a string and dragged through a yard begins to attract metallic objects that we might not notice with the naked eye, our hearts begin to find in every hour, some “new” blessing that we may have missed before.  From this surprising “wealth” of blessing then, we can find a reason to give into others’ needs from a place of abundance that we never knew we had.  And in the end, it isn’t what we say about our blessings that matters, but how we use them that becomes the measure of our thankfulness.  An ungrateful heart never feels that it has as much as it deserves… a grateful heart can’t contain the joy it feels in the knowledge that it has more than it will ever need. 


Galatians 6: 8-9 says, “If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.  So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”  Sow seeds of gratitude, and God’s word says you’ll reap an eternal harvest.  Now, what are you going to do with the yield?

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