Thank You

Stopping in our Tracks

/ pastorpete51 / 9 Comments 
 And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.  Luke 17:16 ESV

On our recent trip, one morning, I noticed that, instead of being thankful, I was doing a lot of complaining. My bed was too hard, (but it was clean): the air conditioner was too loud (But it worked well), the breakfast served at the hotel was skimpy, (But someone had come in at 5 AM to prepare it for me). I asked God to forgive my ungrateful attitude and began recalling the many times when Jesus gave thanks. He thanked God, for the five loaves and two fish, before they were multiplied. He thanked God for always hearing His prayers before Lazarus was raised from the dead. Even on, “The night when He was betrayed,” Jesus took bread and gave thanks. So ashamed of my own petty griping, I wondered how I could become grateful like Him. But as asked for forgiveness, God began to show me that “Giving thanks” was not something He was asking me to feel, rather it was an action that He expected me to do.

God wants us to have the thankfulness of the man in today’s verse. This guy was nobody special. He was simply just one of ten lepers, who came to Jesus for healing. All ten of them looked to God for help. All of them, prayed, asking for mercy, all of them obeyed what Jesus told them to do, and all of them were joyful when they saw that they had been healed. But the Samaritan was unique because he stopped in his tracks and returned to give thanks. If we are to learn gratitude, we need to do the same. Instead of trying hard to work up a grateful feeling, we need to just stop in the tracks of our fussing and moaning, come back to Jesus, and simply give Him thanks!

Thankfulness Challenge 2

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly[a] mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ  1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

“What exactly do you love about me?” my wife sometimes asks me. She doesn’t just want an akimg0754bstract lovey -dovey comment, she wants all the little nitty gritty details! Think of thankfulness as a thousand piece puzzle. It takes more than knowing what the big picture looks like to get that thing together. Finishing the puzzle means fitting each and every tiny part exactly into the position for which it was designed! Paul got very detailed about the thanks he was giving for his friends at the Thessalonian church. In fact Paul went into extra innings in his prayer time to remind God with a specific list of their work, their faith and their labor of love.

We might tell our pastor, “Hey great sermon today!” but can we take the time to say, “That part about unshakable confidence being like the mountains really made me think.” If we are to start building a design of thankfulness, let’s make it our goal this week to just fit in at least one tiny puzzle piece. If kimg0749we were blessed by the worship, we could say something like, “When you got to that part about God breaking chains, my heart just felt a breakthrough tonight!”

Saying thank you, may feel awkward and maybe a little strange but God himself can be very specific when he expresses His love for us. He counts our every hair, he bottles every tear and hears every cry. He touched a leper and put clothing on a naked demon possessed man. Jesus had compassion on the hungry, then took the time to count every one in the crowd before he multiplied their bread. He has left us a perfect example that is not only our duty but it is our joy to follow. When we give thanks for what someone has done for us we never know what it will do. Giving thanks is a bit like washing dirty tired feet. Thankfulness means taking the position of servant before our brothers and sisters, so we can walk together into everything that God has designed for us!

What do you say?

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Appreciation: The act of recognizing someone’s worth as a person or showing that you are grateful for something that person has done.  Cambridge Dictionary

2 Thessalonians 1:3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers,[a] as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing

“What do you say?” my mom would ask me as she held tightly onto whatever it was I wanted at that particular moment. “Thank you” I would answer, knowing that with those “magic words” as she called them would allow me to finally possess whatever it was I had asked her for at the time. The reason behind Mom’s training was her attempt to pass on to me not only a modicum of politeness but also an attitude of thankfulness and appreciation.

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Serving Communion at Nursing Home

That appreciation is often missing from our lives because as adults, we often rush off with things in our hands that we haven’t paused to even look at yet alone appreciate. We give a quick kiss or a hug to our loved ones then too eagerly hurry off to the activities of the day with scarcely a backward glance. “Great tuna casserole!” I said to my wife one night, only to hear her laugh in reply, “Honey that’s chicken! Don’t you even taste the food you eat?” That small conversation is a sad reflection of the ease with which as we speed through our days we are losing the small graces of gratitude, thankfulness and appreciation.

Maybe we could ask ourselves three questions as we begin yet another day.

Do I really need to hurry?

Have I remembered to say thank you for what God has put in my hand?

Have I tasted what I have been given and truly appreciated those who gave?