BE GRATEFUL TO GOD AND HIS MANY HUMAN AGENTS!

Too sad that many of us will look so hard and too far to find someone or people to show real gratitude to. The people so near and around us might be consciously or unconsciously by- passed and forgotten in the list of people to show any gratitude to. The usual daily things that have sustained our lives and the people through whom they come might not make it to most gratitude lists.

Some ‘super spiritual’ fellows will only be grateful to God and not the many human agents He has used to sustain our lives. Other ‘non – spiritual’ fellows will selectively pick certain key human agents to be grateful to and forget the God who sent and enabled them.

Ours is a generation that also feels entitled! This is a generation that knows their rights, claims, fights for and gets those rights! Most of us feel we don’t have to show gratitude for things that are ours by right and the people who are simply performing their roles or duties as required by law. That is why ;

• we don’t express gratitude to the watchman for doing his work of opening the gate for us…
• we don’t say thank you when the bus conductor gives us back our ‘ change’ after paying the fare…
• we don’t express gratitude when our wives prepares us super…
• we don’t express gratitude to our parents for paying our fees….
• no gratitude for our pastors for doing their job of feeding us on God’s word…
• A wife doesn’t say thank you to her husband for buying her a new dress or paying rent…
• no gratitude to the government for offering us services….
• what or who else don’t we show gratitude to?

We have inflated our egos and pampered our personalities, twisted our minds to view every good thing as a right and not a privilege! With this, genuinely gratitude hearts are very hard to come by!

Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? And then he said to them, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well .’ (Luke 17: 16 -18)

The verses above from the parable of the ten lepers reminds us of just how common ingratitude is and how easy it is to take blessings for granted, and how gratitude is dependent upon unmerited favors. Perhaps the Jewish lepers thought they deserved the healing hence didn’t see the need to come back to express their gratitude?

Entitlement is at the core of ingratitude. This attitude says, “Life owes me something” or “People owe me something” or “I deserve this .” In all its manifestations, a preoccupation with the self can cause us to forget our benefits and our benefactors or to feel that we are owed things from others and therefore have no reason to feel thankful.

Entitlement and self -absorption are massive impediments to gratitude. You will certainly not feel grateful when you do receive what you think you saw coming, because after all, you saw it coming.

Most of us won’t be grateful for the things we thought we worked so hard to get. We will only be grateful to ourselves, our hard work, our wisdom and miss out on any other agent through which the success came.

In both cases above, counting blessings will be ineffective because grievances will always out-number gifts or human pride will cloud the blessings.

People who are ungrateful tend to be characterized by excessive sense of self -importance, arrogance, vanity, and an unquenchable need for admiration and approval. And that must not be you for sure.

Everything you have is a privilege, a gift and not a right….

Psalms 100: 1-5

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Have a grateful Saturday and weekend! Do this by physically, outwardly and if possible publicly expressing gratitude to God and the many human agents He has used to sustain your life. Don’t hide your gratitude…. Express it!

Blessed weekend!