Intentionally Grateful
Being a grandparent to a four year old is great: fun, exhausting, humbling … mostly fun. We get to watch our G-daughter most Mondays and I play my part in the wake of a very smart and intentional grandma. I suppose I am mostly the “horsey” or the comic relief and full-time recreation coordinator. The most common comment I get from our “little” is, “What should we play now, Grandpa?”
It’s also great to team with our daughter and SIL in teaching manners and morals and good behavior (I’m looking forward to teaching her how to properly shake hands!). We practice saying “please” and “thank you” because these are learned behaviors, not natural, and we all know that repetition is key to retention. So, we work on it … often.
Gratitude that consistently shows itself with a simple, honest “thank you” changes lives, starting with the giver of the thanks. Study after study demonstrates how being grateful benefits personal and occasional relationships, it lessens the drive for materialistic goals, it enables folks to savor the good things in life, and has definite health advantages like better sleep and stronger immune systems. (You can trust me … I googled it!). Gratitude proves to be more of a thermostat than a thermometer: It changes the temperature of the room.
Henry Nouwen talks of gratitude in these terms.
In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
And even a cursory look to the Bible shows how often there are multiple calls to God's people to be thankful, to show gratitude, first to God and then splashing over to every corner of our life. It starts out vertical,
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his loyal love never ends. Ps.107:1
But then washes over us to see that all of life, like Nouwen says, is a gift: people, events, possessions, opportunities. Horizontal thankfulness as a lifestyle! And the wise person understands the power for us and others of simple gratitude.
At the same time, a lack of gratitude carries a full load of bad juju. Richard Simmons, in his book The Power of a Humble Life, says,
As I have studied the importance of gratitude over the years, I have gained a greater and greater appreciation for its significance and recognize the deadly consequences of ingratitude. Os Guinness says ingratitude is a moral, spiritual, and emotional carelessness about the realities of life. Tim Keller says every time something good happens in your life and you are not grateful to God, you are putting a deep mark on your soul. And Warren Wiersbe says, “An ungrateful heart is fertile soil for all types of evil.”
Pulling on this string of thought leads me to a personal challenge to be more intentionally grateful. Before my feet hit the floor in the morning (unless, of course, there is an urgent call to visit the "reading room"), I’ve been jump-starting my day with whispering and visualizing 10 - 15 specific things I am thankful to God for. I find I am grateful for the gift of another day, for my bride sleeping beside me, for my (relatively) good health, adult children who are doing well with life, and on and on. This discipline colors the start of my day in the best of ways.
How’s this for a challenge? Let’s do it together. For the next month, consider beginning your morning with visualizing and saying aloud, but not too loudly, your gratitudes. Try to come up with new ones each day. Thank God, as the true Giver, for all you enjoy in life. Be grateful for your life and the people in it. Have fun running through a list of all that is yours. Feel free to let me know how it is going and in what ways it has affected your days.
Intentionally grateful. Maybe we should make T-shirts! Let’s go!
Music time!
...and some bad humor
The little turtle climbs the tree very slowly, very painfully. Then she crawls along a branch, to the very end, and when she finally gets to the edge, she jumps. And she falls. But she doesn't get discouraged.
So she walks to the tree, she climbs the tree, she crawls along the branch, she gets to the edge, and she jumps. And falls to the ground.
Again, with a stubborn look on her face, the little turtle walks slowly to the tree, she climbs the tree, she crawls along the branch, she gets to the edge, and she jumps. And falls.
In a nearby tree a couple of pigeons are looking at the little turtle. Walk, climb, crawl, jump. Fall. And all over again.
After a while one of the pigeons ask the other, "Hey honey, don't you think it's time we tell her that she's adopted?"
__________
This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used with a man as part of a job interview.
You're driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night. You pass a bus stop and see three people waiting for the bus:
1. An old woman, who looks as if she's about to die.
2. An old friend who once saved your life.
3. The man/woman of your dreams.
Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing there could only be one passenger in your car?
Think before you continue reading.
You could pick up the old woman because she is going to die; thus you should save her first.
Or, you could pick up the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him/her back.
However, you may never be able to find your perfect dream lover again.
The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer.
WHAT DID HE SAY?
He simply answered: "I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the old woman the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the woman of my dreams."
Never forget to think outside the box!
Thank you. Got it. Cool.