Daily Devotionals
Devotional: November 25th
“…and be ye thankful.”
A thankful heart adds sparkle to all of life. At the close of a dinner, one of the children said, “That was a good meal, Mother.” That remark created a new sense of warmth in an already happy house.
Too often we fail to express our thanks. The Lord Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one returned to give thanks, and that one was a Samaritan (Lu. 17:17). Two lessons emerge. Gratitude is rare in a world of fallen men. And when it does appear, it often comes from the least-expected sources.
It is easy for us to feel grieved when we show kindness to others and they do not even have the courtesy to say “Thank you.” By the same token, we should realize how others feel when we fail to express gratitude for favors received.
Even a cursory examination of the Bible reveals that it is punctuated with exhortations and examples of thanksgiving to God. We have so many things for which to be grateful to Him; we could not possibly tabulate them all. Our whole lives should be psalms of thanks to Him.
Ten thousand, thousand precious gifts My daily thanks employ; Nor is the least a cheerful heart To taste those gifts with joy.
And we should cultivate the habit of expressing thanks to one another as well. A warm handshake, a phone call or a letter—what uplift they bring! An aged doctor received a note of thanks along with the payment from one of his patients. He kept that note among his prized possessions; it was the first one he had ever received.
We should be quick to express gratitude for gifts, for hospitality, for free transportation, for the loan of tools or other equipment, for help with our work projects, for every form of kindness and service that is shown to us.
The trouble is that too often we take these things for granted. Or we are too undisciplined to sit down and write a letter. In that case, we must work at the habit of thanksgiving, developing an awareness of all that we have for which to be grateful, then training ourselves to acknowledge these things promptly. The promptness of the acknowledgment doubles the thanks.
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