It just feels so good to say "thank you"! This small phrase carries a tremendous weight when it's stated from a place of authenticity!
I've made it a practice to say thank you a lot! My mom is the best about sending "thank you" notes to folks on a regular basis, especially if it was for a gift received. The rule of thumb is that when you receive a gift, whether it's a trinket or something substantial, that within two weeks the giver should receive a "thank you" in the mail.
Now, I’m not saying that you simply do something for a “thank you” or that we should get in the mindset of having to receive “thanks” for every little thing we do (we really should expect nothing and appreciate everything). However, as Christians and believers, who gained entrance to freedom from the ultimate gift, I think we should cultivate a lifestyle of thanks!
We all have so much to be thankful for, and it’s a bit off-putting when someone acts like or heaven forbid says they have nothing to be thankful for! That’s just hogwash! Everyone who just took a breath of air has a cry of thanks in them that should be offered up to the Lord for sustaining us each day! What happens all to often is that people get focused on the petty issues of life or what they don’t have and then draw that very thing to them and wind up in a rut of un-thankfulness; because after all, you are what you think! Then when that person by chance does something altruistic for another person they have the gall to get upset that they weren’t thanked! Give me a large break! Anyway, I’m getting off the subject.
When you are consistently thankful for what you have, then you can be trusted with more to steward. However when you are constantly griping about what you can’t do and don’t have then you get more of the same negative energy back. I want to encourage you to do what David did in the Psalms! He stayed in an attitude of thankfulness even when things weren’t going his way. Yeah, he had some down moments, but he always came back to how great God was and how magnificent the Lord had been in his life.
So take your next breath thanking God for what He’s done for you, thank someone today for helping you with something, write a note to someone and convey an attitude of gratefulness. Doing this will keep you in a place of humility and it will also lift your spirit because developing this lifestyle of thanksgiving will only attract the same back to you.
Hope this helps,
Barry