I’ve got the stomach flu, and it has completely ruined my plans. Sure, I should have been prepared when my son Johnny got it a few days ago, but I lived in denial. I’ll spare you the unplesant details, but the part of this that’s interesting is that on Wednesday, someone in our Revelation Bible Study asked us all to pray for gratitude. That’s an unusual prayer request. We get plenty of heath, home, and financial requests, along with the occasional relationship issue or strugling church project, but someone said that we need to be more thankful.
Here’s the connection. Thinking about my poor soon who couldn’t keep liquids down for a full 24 hours, I prayed that we would have the kind of thankfulness that you have when you’ve been coughing for weeks and can finally breathe freely or the kind of thankfulness that you experience afetr getting over the stomach flu and can finally eat and drink again. We get a glimpse of it and then promptly go back to beign dissatisfied with whatever we’re prone to be dissatisfied with.
I am on the road to fresh thankfulness for being able to eat, drink, and think clearly once again! I pray that it will last a bit longer before I get back to financial, child rearing, and church future concerns again. Hey, may I won’t go back at all!
Yesterday afternoon, my kids were starting to get a little bit of cabin fever. It was hot, and the air had been smoky for most of the day, but by late afternoon, the air had cleared a bit and a cool breeze was blowing. “Why don’t you go outside and play, Johnny?” I suggested.
“There’s nothing to do!”
“You could ride your scooter or kick the soccer ball or pull weeds or throw your rocket football or play hide-and-seek with your brother or ride your bike or play with the hula hoop or look for bugs.”
“That’s boring.”
We have a great yard right now and a nice patio, and plenty of toys for the kids to play with. But they stop seeing that and see anything familiar as “boring.”
As I was thinking about how sad that was, I realized that I do the same thing! I focus on whatever is missing in my life at this moment and forget or discount the blessings that God has provided in my life. Just like Johnny!
This morning, I asked the congregation to think about their blessings and then asked how many had thought of something that hadn’t recognized as a blessing before. In one service, a bunch of people raised their hands. In the other, almost none.
We have a choice. We can be thankful for the blessings we have or we can decide that they’re
“boring” and concentrate on what’s not right. It’s a matter
of an “attitude of gratitude,” and life’s a lot more pleasant and satisfying that way.
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