An Attitude of Gratitude

"Next time, we should get a cooler movie and better snacks," said my 4 1/2 year old son.  He said this immediately following a family movie night where we watched, Zootopia (his pick) and had popcorn and ice cream for a treat. His father and I stood there with our mouthes gaping open, thinking, "What the heck!?" as we then proceeded to launch into a tag team lecture on gratitude which included references to starving children in Africa, children whose parents don't plan fun movies nights, and the trump card of "Jesus said we should be grateful!" The waterworks started and he immediately began to profusely apologize, but I had took a pause and thought, "Is this a true repentance  and understanding of what it means to be grateful or did we just lecture our child into apologizing?"  

An attitude of gratitude has been a recurring theme in our house as we entered the fourth year of our child's existence on this earth. At some point during the past six months as I was getting onto him for not being grateful for something, I realized "We have to TEACH him gratitude."  Duh! I don't know why I didn't think about gratefulness as being on the list of things we needed to teach him alongside of pointing him to Jesus, how to love reading, and all the other things we teach him.  It's probably because I don't remember someone sitting me down and saying "Let me teach you about gratefulness..." I just knew that "an attitude of gratitude" was something you were supposed to have. Around the same time, one of the "mom blogs"(as my husband so lovingly refers to them) I read recommended the book,Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World by Kristen Welch, which I immediately ordered because I thought "How providential that I read about this topic right when we are dealing with it"...plus, I'm a book nerd. :-) 

While reading the chapter, "Gratitude is a Choice," my pen was furiously underlining and taking notes as I began to understand why gratitude is a character trait which must be taught.  Gratitude isn't something that comes easy to a four year old....scratch that...Gratitude isn't something that comes easy to ANYONE. It is the opposite of the "I deserve" and "I have the right to" mentality that is, oh SO prevalent in our culture. Entitlement feeds our inner ego telling us we should get more, have more, be more. It's a poison which slowly seeps into our heart, steals the joy of contentment and the understanding of grace.  Grace is when we receive something we do NOT deserve...how can you understand grace when you think that you deserve everything you've ever been given? The only remedy for how this poison infects our hearts and minds is gratitude. Welch quotes from an article by Robert Emmons "What Gets in the Way of Gratitude?": 

In all its manifestations, a preoccupation with the self can cause us to forget our benefits and our benefactors or to feel we are owed things from other and therefore have not reason to feel thankful....Seeing with grateful eyes requires that we see the web of interconnection in which we alternate being givers and receivers.  The humble person says that life is a gift to be grateful for, not a right to be claimed. 

None of us are born feeling grateful.  Gratitude is something we have to choose every day, every minute, every second.  I am SO guilty of expressing gratitude and then five minutes later turning around and complaining about something else.  As Welch says, "Maintaining gratitude is challenging because our situations, circumstances and emotions change like the weather.  But, God is always the same." 

God is not human that he should lie, not a human being that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

-Numbers 23: 19

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

-Hebrews 13:8

--Gabrielle Haston

Where is Your Hope?

Do you feel discouraged when you watch the news? Do you look around at the values and philosophies of our culture and wonder how we got here? Do you long for something better? So do I.

When God allows me to hear the same message from different sources, I want to be especially careful to listen and see what God has for me. I attended a three-day women’s conference last month in which the topic was “Resurrection Life in a World of Suffering," based on the book of I Peter. Imagine worshiping and studying this book with 7,200 women from across the United States and around the world. It was incredible! 

At the same time, my husband felt led by the Lord to go through the book of I Peter in our Sunday school class. We are currently still in chapter 1, but as we study it in church and I hear the same truths I heard at the conference, I pray this book finds deeper root in my heart.

Right at the start of the book, Peter names his audience. The Greek word can be translated into exiles (ESV), strangers (KJV), aliens (NASB), or foreigners (NLT). It is the idea of a sojourner, who is temporarily dwelling in a foreign country far from home. This word carries with it the connotation of not fitting in, of being different, and not belonging.  And though God’s people were often physical exiles, as in Egypt and Babylon in the Old Testament, in a greater sense, they were spiritual exiles.  Peter wanted to remind his readers that the world was not their true home, nor their place of belonging.  And this admonition of Peter’s is just as true for us today almost 2,000 years later.

Peter was not the only one who spoke this truth. In Hebrews 11:14-16, the unnamed author tells us that God’s people of the past acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, and that their hope was not in the world they knew, but in a better country, a heavenly one that they looked toward in faith. For the believers of Hebrews 11, it was not an untested hope; they faced great persecution and still clung to this hope in an unseen future. Suffering is also a key theme of I Peter; this word shows up in various forms fifteen times! Living as exiles in a foreign world where we don’t fit in, especially in times of persecution, brings suffering.

Yet another key theme, and what Peter consistently calls us to throughout the letter is hope, the same hope we saw in the lives of the Hebrews 11 believers. Peter tell us that we have a living hope that because Christ was raised from the dead, we too will be raised, and we have an inheritance ready to be revealed in the last time (1:3-4). As we long for that day, we are to set our hope fully on what is to come when Christ is revealed (1:13, 21). That means we do not place any of our hope in this world, as we are often tempted to do, hoping, for example, partially in God and partially in our government. Hope in our future reality should pervade our lives, even in trials, so that the unbelieving world takes note and asks where our unshakable hope comes from (3:15).

Though the news is depressing, though our culture finds joy and entertainment in what the Bible calls sin, though the political situation in our country looks dismal, we, as sojourners in this world, have hope, because our hope is in none of these things. Our hope rests in something far greater than this temporary time and place. It rests in the promise of an unchanging, eternal God who is preparing for us our true home, where we will no longer be foreigners but know true belonging. Do others see that hope in us?

I want to leave you with a few quotes from the conference I attended, because others are far better with words than I am.

-- “God has known you deeply forever. We do not have to create our identity on our own. We are not lost orphans, but God’s children heading home.”   “We are named and we are placed by God Himself. Through Him, our exile is lit up with hope.” (Kathleen Nielson)

-- “As Christians, we must embrace our strangeness in this world.”  “We are far from home, but we are not far from Him.” “We’re people on mission to glorify God in a strange land.” (Mary Wilson)

-- “Peter calls us repeatedly to live in a way that does not make sense in this world. It only makes sense when there is an unshakable belief and hope in another world.” (John Piper)

--Amy O'Rear

Staying Hydrated

How are you beating the heat? While many of us would rather reach for our sodas or teas, we all know it’s best to drink water on hot days like we’ve had...and to drink it often!

When the heat is on in your spiritual life, how are you hydrating? As the Israelites followed Moses in the desert they often complained about their physical circumstances. They’d been in bondage, but the conveniences of slave life appeared more pleasurable than the uncertainty of wilderness life. 

We often read of God’s provision, and we scold the Israelites for their lack of trust in God, but we fail to remember that they did not have the vantage point that we have in reading their story from start to finish. 

In your own desert, it may be difficult to find the refreshment and hydration that you need. We convince ourselves that we need a trip to the beach or a pedicure to feel refreshed. And while those are excellent relaxers (and should probably be utilized whenever possible) they can’t fulfill for very long. We have to leave the beach eventually, and our toenails will need reshaping in a few weeks. 

Like the Israelites, you may doubt that hydration is coming soon, but just as God provided in unique and unexpected ways...even when they complained...He is a good Father and ready to quench your thirst. I can’t give you a checklist or guaranteed steps to follow, but I can tell you that when I have most needed a sip of cold water and have surrounded myself with truth from His Word whether by reading or through song, He has poured out rivers of water to revive my soul. So, if you’re not ready to gulp it down, at least attempt some sips, and I bet you won’t have to wait long for your thirst to be quenched.

~Rebecca (Phillips) Monroe

A Hard Row to Hoe

Farming is just plain hard work. As I had brothers, I didn’t have to help with most of the field work, but the one field task I couldn’t get out of was walking beans. Come July, day after day, Dad would hand out machetes or corn hooks (a small curved blade with a long handle) and gloves to Mom and the four kids and we would ride in the back of the pickup to the soybean fields. We had 60 acres of soybeans to weed by hand. Corn stalks -- random leftovers from last year’s crop -- could be cut. Others had to be pulled. Dad paid us five cents per row.

We were each responsible for four rows of beans, two on our left and two on our right. We lined up in phalanx formation and walked across the field, more or less together, weeding our own rows. It took only a few minutes for us to be covered with sweat and dirt. The plants made us itch, and corn leaves cut our skin.

My most memorable day of walking beans was perhaps the most miserable day of my childhood. We encountered a large patch of weeds, with lots of mustard and cockleburs, which had to be pulled by hand. Mustard came up easily, but cockleburs were extremely well-rooted. The thickest, longest part of the weed patch was centered in my own four rows. The whole family was slowed by the large patch, but, eventually, all the others finished their rows and moved on down the half-mile field. There were so many weeds in my rows, I just sat down, pulled as many as I could reach, then inched forward and pulled some more. The sun was relentless. There are no shade trees in a soybean field. Sweat traced wobbly paths through the dirt on my body. My muscles ached; I was exhausted. There was not a person in sight. The water cooler was in the truck at the end of the row. I was so miserable, I cried as I pulled weeds. The tears and runny nose only added to my misery. I didn’t stop weeding, and I didn’t stop crying. I felt so lonely and hopeless. Didn’t they miss me? Not on your life – they were busy tending to their own twenty cents. My rows were my problem.

Eventually they returned, sixteen rows farther across the field. Decades later, Mom recalled her dismay at seeing me sitting in the weed patch, sobbing as I worked. She helped me finish my rows. Her presence didn’t change the heat, the fatigue, the thirst. But it made all the difference in the world to have someone working alongside me.

Most of the people around us have, in some form or another, a hard row to hoe. God tells us in many ways to help others. He tells us to take our neighbor’s wandering ox back home, to share our food when others have unexpected guests, to weep with those who weep, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Sometimes we may not see their weed patch. We may be busy earning our own 20 cents. But He doesn’t let us off the hook for that. He tells us not to look the other way. Even if we can’t actually help, it makes a difference to have someone beside us who sees our struggles.

And He is the one Who is always with us. Jesus said it was good for us that He went away, so the Holy Spirit could come. He called His Holy Spirit a Comforter, the One Who comes alongside – exactly what we need.

--Lynda Shenefield

God's Plan for Women

A local insurance outfit claims that the biggest fear most people have is that they will outlive their money! When I first heard that statement on the radio, it pulled me up short. Is this true? Is the possibility of living without money really what drives people? But the statement made me think: What do I fear?

One thing I fear--if I'm being honest--is that I will outlive my friends, that I will be alone at the end of my life. I know I'll likely have family nearby, and they are truly wonderful, but they will be busy with their own stuff. I want to have friends to chat with and meet for lunch and have over for tea.

Recently, it has occurred to me that God has a perfect solution to my fears. In the last three weeks, I've met three friends for lunch, and guess what? It's not likely that I'll outlive any of them, since they are all at least twenty-five years younger than me.

Titus 2: 3-5 gives some direction for the "older women" of the church. Much as it galls me to admit it, I am one of those older women. But here's the good news: we are instructed in this passage to "urge younger women" to live godly lives. Another version uses the verb "teach." How perfect is that?! In order to "urge" and "teach," we are going to have to spend time together, right? I think this mandate means also developing relationships with those young women.

I have to tell you, I like this plan! I love spending time with all kinds of people, but young women are some of my very favorite.

Over and over again, I find that God's plan for me is so completely wonderful. He anticipated my needs--and my fears--before I ever came on the scene. I realize that God didn't make this plan for me alone, but I'm ever so grateful for it nonetheless. It's the perfect antidote to loneliness.

--Sherry Poff