89 THANK YOU
89 THANK YOU
Like most sounds of appreciation, ‘thank you’ is being lost. We struggle to give our children, family and friends our time, gifts and energy, hoping to be appreciated and to make them better people but, as we give, they have learned to expect and think it is their right to have and not a freely offered gift.
Jesus did very few miracles without being asked. The first miracle recorded, turning water into wine, he was asked by His mother to do and even questioned her before doing it.
While walking on the water in the storm, He was going to walk by His disciples, without speaking, and only stopped and helped them when they cried out, in fear, and questioned Him as to who or what He was.
Blind Bartimaeus, when he heard the commotion going by and found out that it was Jesus, went to great lengths to get Jesus’ attention so that he could ask for his sight.
The ten lepers were not allowed, by law, to come near any healthy person but shouted for Jesus’ attention and got their healing. It is also recorded in God’s word, that only one returned to thank Jesus and he was not even of God’s people. [Hebrew, Christian, believer or whatever word, pertaining to God, that you want to use there.] Jesus recorded His disapproval at the lack of thankfulness by His question of ‘where the other nine were?’
It has been my observation that thankfulness is slipping farther and farther away from our personalities. People held doors open for others and were ‘thanked’ for their politeness. People stepped back and gave ladies, elderly and cripples first place in lines, seats on buses and priority at events; they helped them get on with their days so they would not have to endure the hardships that healthy people could endure easier. Thank you was followed by ‘your welcome’, which has since been dropped. Now we are in danger of loosing ‘thank you’.
Each generation, in trying to make it easier for the next generation, is making them think that they deserve the royal treatment that they are getting and are teaching them to be less and less thankful as time goes by.
We have gone so far as to consider some one who is mildly thankful to be an extremist or a religious fanatic when their way should be the normal activity of everyone.
We do not deserve the gifts and everyday things that God gives us; our breath, our heartbeat, our hands and feet, our lives with very little pain, our loved ones, our security, enough to eat and drink, heat and cold at the right times and in the proper portions, sun shine, birds singing and peace and quiet.
He does and gives us everything in our lives for our good and His pleasure and He wants us to appreciate it. Those that don’t will displease Him and not end up in His presence [His kingdom].
His coming kingdom is being prepared for His pleasure, not our comfort. Those entering it will make His joy, their greatest delight and their lives desire to provide. That is where we will get our joy from; by doing what pleases Him.
By remembering to say ‘thank you’ and meaning it, will be a good place to start and, maybe, ‘your welcome’ might slip back into our conversations.
