Home » Library » Cultivating An Attitude Of Gratitude

Friday, November 20, 2009

Cultivating An Attitude Of Gratitude

By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Deuteronomy 8:11–18  

¹¹ Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. ¹² When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ¹⁵ who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, ¹⁶ and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. ¹⁷ Do not say to yourself, "My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth." ¹⁸ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

On this Sunday before Thanksgiving Day I want to read you a thank you note. It is a thank you to you from another person in our church who was involved in our Career Transition Workshop recently and got a job because of the training and networking he found there.

His name is Dan Kerns and he was not a member of our congregation but found our employment group and participated for several months until he got a job with the FBI and has now moved to Stafford Virginia. Here is what he writes:

“I would like to thank you for making your Career Transition Workshop support program available to myself and others. I was unemployed for over a year and I attended your weekly support group sessions as often as I could. The knowledge, skills, contacts, and support I acquired from attending the CTW support group were instrumental in helping me secure permanent employment.

I found the rotating session leaders to be exceptional and well qualified. They were very in tune with what is currently happening in the job market and willing to share their unique perspective. Most were very candid and honest in their opinions and answers to questions, and kept the sugar coating off the reality of being unemployed and the struggles of the job hunt. I found that approach to be motivational. Thank you, leaders!”

It would be just great if Mr. Kerns had only written that part of the note to acknowledge and thank some of our volunteers here at St Andrew—to thank you as a congregation for providing that ministry among the 200 or so different ministries that we offer for our community and our members, but he did even more, and here is what I am equally impressed with at the end of the letter.

He has moved to Virginia for his new job, and he ends his thank you letter in this way:

“Your program has made enough of an impression on me that it is my intent, after I get settled in here, to participate in several employment-seeking support groups in this area, and freely share my experiences to help others walk the walk through the unemployment maze and to secure meaningful employment for themselves.”

Wow. He is not only saying thanks to leaders and to this congregation, he is saying that he is going to show his thanks, his gratitude by doing for others what has been done for him-supporting and helping others in the same way this church has done so for him.

When we walk out of church after worship, we pass under a Bible verse from Genesis where God says to Abraham and to us, I WILL BLESS YOU SO THAT YOU CAN BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS!!

I will bless you so that you may show your gratitude and your thankfulness by being a blessing to others—not so you can grow complacent and self centered and smug, but so you can pass it on.

I want to look this morning at two different postures we can take in life: one is a posture of entitlement—God owes me everything, life owes me everything. That is a stance of entitlement. The other posture is one of gratitude for each day, a spirit of thanksgiving and humility that we find in the psalms so often. It is the spirit that is in us when we try to have what St Paul calls, “Having the mind of Christ.”

The first posture of entitlement is what Moses was concerned about when he was standing on Mount Nebo in what is now Jordan and looking over the land of Canaan after wandering in the wilderness for forty years. He was looking at a fertile and rich land where the Israelites would thrive and prosper and grow wealthy. And he is worried. He is concerned that when they prosper, they will forget God, they will forget that it is God that has led them here, that they have not prospered all by themselves, and they will become conceited an self centered and arrogant.

Have you seen that happen to anyone? I heard of a man in a former congregation I served who said to a friend during this week before Thanksgiving that he felt no need to give thanks to anyone because he was a self made person and he had worked hard for everything he had, so why should he give thanks to God or anyone else because he had earned it all and deserved all he had and more!!

That is what Moses was worried about as he should have been worried!

We see that same attitude of entitlement and self-centeredness in a story in the gospel of Luke when Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem for a final confrontation with the powers that be. He is traveling through a small village and is approached by ten lepers who ask for him to heal them. He tells them to go to the priest who will verify their healings and on the way they are healed. When they discover that they have been healed, do you remember what happened next?

One of them turned around, comes back to Jesus, kneels at his feet, says thank you to Jesus and praises God for this dramatic change in his life. Jesus says, Wait. There were ten people who were healed. Where are the others?

That story is a good example of entitlement from the nine who just failed to come back and say, “thank you”. It is a good example in the one man of a different life posture, an attitude of gratitude, a humility that says life does not owe me anything, God does not owe me anything, I have been given much, and I am called to be grateful every day for being alive and for the chance to make a difference.

St. Paul reminds us of this second attitude when he asks us this question in one of his letters: “What do you have that you have not received?”

Look at what has been given to you—being intelligent enough to make your way in the world, the chance to be born in or to move to one of the most blessed countries in the world, the support of friends and family and church to keep surviving and thriving in life. What do you have that you have not received?

And how can we say and show our thankfulness even in very difficult times?

I hope you have seen or will take time to see the art exhibit in the hallway and to meet the artist this morning. I called her this week to compliment her on her work and told her how much I was enjoying seeing it each day. Nancy Gardiner has a very powerful story of God’s presence in her life in a terrible tragedy and how God has brought new life and new talents out of that tragedy. Thirteen years ago she was skiing with her family and took a very bad fall toward the beginning of the day that shattered her leg. There was even a possibility that it would need to be amputated because of the several breaks and severed ligaments.

She went through seven surgeries and was bed ridden for four months. She was bored as she recovered, and her mother brought her a paint set. She had never painted before, so she said that she played around with the paint set as she recovered. She enjoyed this new found ability, so she took private lessons for a year after she healed. Now she teaches painting fulltime out of a studio in her home and her art has been displayed in local and state art shows as well as being commissioned in Sky Ridge Hospital and Children’s hospitals. Her information piece says that she enjoys giving back by sharing her gift with others.

She told me on the phone that the very morning of her horrible skiing accident that she had started her morning by saying this prayer: “Lord, I need a change in my life!”

Her attitude of gratitude each day even after a time of much suffering and pain and uncertainty reminds me of the same attitude of those early American pilgrims who in the fall of 1621 decided to hold a three day feast to thank God—even after half their number had died in the winter of 1620. They had buried children and spouses during that awful year, but half of them, 60 or so, had survived, and they had a good harvest and had made some friendships with the natives, and so, even though many had died and others had suffered, they took time to give thanks to God.

How much do you need to have, how well does life need to be going, for you to give thanks?

Isn’t that thankfulness, isn’t that gratitude an ongoing, lifelong posture? Our scriptures say that it is.

How can we show our thankfulness? By sharing what we have? By doing for others what has been done for us as Dan Kerns is doing now after he has a job and has moved to Virginia so he can be involved in similar unemployment groups for encouragement and support of others who are out of work and discouraged.

How will you show your thanks—by writing someone who perhaps you have taken for granted to tell them what they have meant?

And how do you start each day so that this attitude of gratitude can be a life stance, a life perspective?

Have you discovered how important the Psalms can be in strengthening our relationship with God? Here is a random Psalm, Psalm 138, that could be our mantra at the beginning of each day of our lives:

I thank you Lord with all my heart. I face your temple and bow down and praise your name because of your constant love and faithfulness. You have answered me when I called to you, and with your strength you have strengthened me. When I am surrounded by troubles you keep me safe.  Amen.