TERMINAL GRATITUDE

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Most of us are not nearly as grateful as we ought to be. Just a little reflection on the quality of life most of us have will “blow your mind.” We have so much to be grateful for.

But some of us have what I would call terminal gratitude. We just keep saying, “Thank you, thank you, over and over again and still feel unworthy of our blessings. We need to be thankful and we need to express our gratitude and then we need to move on. We need to be a blessing to everybody we can as others have blessed us. But we don’t need to feel we “owe” somebody eternal gratitude. They did what they did because they wanted to.

We thank the one who gave us a job by being a good employee. We thank our parents for what they gave us by being good children and by being good parents ourselves. We thank our friends for all they are to us by being good friends in return. Don’t just talk about what a great friend you are to someone. Show that friendship by the way you treat them. It’s not words that make you a good neighbor, but action. And on and on it goes.

We don’t need to drop to our knees and worship at the feet of those who have blessed us but are not God. If you are truly grateful show it by the life you live—not just by the words you say.