Gratitude

It is often in "our own desert" that we "meet" God. 

With all of the things going on in March I have come to realize one thing is easy to overlook, gratitude.  We live in a society where everything is "on demand."  We have come to believe that you can get something for little or no effort.  We have become an entitlement based mentality.  Did anyone ever stop and think what this brings about?

One of those things I have noticed is lack of gratitude. Gratitude for what?  For starters just being alive.  There is health, family, a place to call home, food and appreciation for good hard work.  Who to be grateful to? There are our employers for providing us with a job from which we can get an income.  There are our parents who gave us life and sacrificed much so we could be who we are and believed in us and what we can become.

There are those who lifted us up on a down day. There are those that bore our trials with us even though they had no reason to do so.  There are friends who put loyalty before differences.  There are those who don't turn away when it would be easy to do so.

There are the good times when very little adversarial trials are in our way.  There are the things that we learn in easy and hard times.  There is humility when it is easy to become prideful.  There is the spiritual when darkness is all around us.  There is being accepted for who we are and not what we aren't.

Above all there is a Supreme Being to whom all the glory of this gratitude goes. He is the architect of our lives, the giver of all things from the most simple to the very rich. He says yes to more prayers than He says no too.

Where have we gone as a society when the only thankfulness we can muster up is the obligatory type at a restaurant to the server?  Being grateful is second only to being charitable in defining a person. If we were only just a small bit more grateful to our fellow man and our God just think of the miracles that would follow?

What are we truly missing out on here?  We are missing out on the ability to be free or be in bondage. To appreciate rather than demand. To love rather than demand love. To be respected because of being the better person.  There is much more than just these things, but I truly believe our level of self actualization is tied to how grateful we really are.

We all must make our own way, yet no one can get to the goal without some assistance seen or unseen. It is not the great things, but the little things that  we must be thankful for before we can appreciate the big changes in life.

We watch the media and they say that we should all do it for ourselves and others should benefit us. We should do for ourselves the right thing so we can be of assistance to our fellow beings, not the other way around.

I get on social media sites and the stench of "look at me" is everywhere.  How about we look at us and then honestly assess our situation. If we want different outcomes we have to change the way we make things happen. We can't beat the same dead horse expecting a live one to take it's place.  We have to bury the dead horse and assess. What are we doing right? If we are doing the right thing keep it. What are we doing wrong? If we are doing wrong change it. What is we don't know where to go? Ask directions.

It is easy to say this stuff but much harder to do in practice.  A wise man once said the world would take the poor out of the "slums" and put them in better conditions. He then said that God "takes the slums out of the people and then the people take themselves out of the slums."

Thankfulness is taking the slums out of the people, out of ourselves. Then if we are in literal or symbolic slums we remove ourselves to better housing, communities, attitudes, jobs, friends, etc.  That gratitude is what I hope more members of society will see and practice. A simple "thanks" goes a long way when you mean it. Just imagine thank yous and humility combined? What a better world we make for ourselves.

If we want to be the center of attention, quit trying to make everyone see how much you have, your social status, your job, income, and physical attractiveness.  People are more attracted to character than to substance. If you desire attention get it the right way, not the "look at me" way.

Gratitude is the key to happiness and more blessings in our lives. I hope our society can have gratitude vs entitlement. The entitled person is never happy because they always want something and never stop demanding.  The grateful person opens up and is thankful for what they have and then have more room to receive, because they are more willing to give to others. It is the service that is tied universally to gratitude.

There is never something for nothing. Someone is writing a check. We should be grateful for what we have and we will get more in proportion to gratitude.