Devotional Thoughts on Gratitude

1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7 asks a question I have found myself pondering: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”

You could look around right now and reflect on what you are receiving at this moment. Of course there is the air we take for granted, but just feel it now as it fills your lungs and your nostrils. It flows and does its work without any thought or extra care from you. And the protection from the elements provided by this building or your home or car. The other morning I rushed through the dry, cold, still air to my car and quickly closed the door as I scooted in. I shivered, impatient for the anticipated warmth from the heater vent. In that short time, think of all that I received from God – a car; the cold of winter; the dryness rather than the penetrating cold of moisture; the knowledge and possession of the coming warmth; a place to go that required my journey; a place to start that journey and the safety of both; the roads on which my car would travel; the agreement with our neighbors to abide by standard rules that allows a safe interaction while driving; the ability to move myself, with hardly a thought, to the car and to quicken the pace without any concern. We could go much further in the pursuit of all that we receive. But one more thing needs to be said before we move toward gratitude.

Some of those things you have received cannot be purchased at any price. There are those who would pay anything to own what some of us receive freely, without thought. From another perspective: others work just as hard or harder with both their minds and their bodies, but will never have the opportunity to receive what you have. Perhaps their mind is not as agile as yours or their body not as able; perhaps they didn’t receive the same opportunities.

Which of these can you thank God for, right now? Can you reflect a little further to realize other blessings you may regularly take for granted, but which make a profound effect on who you are and what you are able to do?

When you begin to notice these works of God in you and for you, you may also find a tendency to balance them with thoughts of what you do not have or what you have lost. Why do we sometimes do this? Does this affect our attitude of thankfulness? Is it possible that in losing something we now miss we may have gained something else? Perhaps even something that we are presently unaware of?

Looking Forward

Memorial Day was first enacted in 1868 to remember the fallen Union soldiers of the civil war, although it was probably built upon practices already held in various areas around the country. The first documented communal remembrance after the civil war was a cemetery built by freed slaves in 1865 on the site of a former confederate prison camp in Charleston, SC, where union soldiers had been buried in a mass grave. The former slaves re-interred the bodies into their own individual graves, fenced the area, and posted an arched sign declaring the site a Union graveyard.

After World War II the holiday was expanded to the memory of all those United States men and women who had given their lives in war. In its earliest days the holiday was mostly called Decoration Day and on May 30th 1868, in keeping with the Memorial Day Order, those former slaves who had honored the Union dead by re-interring their bodies in Charleston, went back and decorated their graves with flowers they had picked from the countryside.

Honoring the dead is not about living in the past; rather it is about remembering what was so valuable that men and women were willing to lay down their lives for it. It is about gratitude for what we have received from their sacrifice. It reminds us of the cost that has been paid for our benefit. We honor their lives by not only remembering, but by living as stewards of what we have received.

In an even greater way, we also look forward from the cross to the lost world around us. We decorate the ugly place of death - the cross and the tomb – with our gratitude and praise. We remember and proclaim his death with a supper every Sunday. We draw inspiration and strength from the tragic moments of his death for our own transformation. We offer our bodies as living sacrifices so that his will may be accomplished through us. We remember while we look forward.