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| Taking the time to be silly and to give thanks. |
Gratitude
has gone viral. If you’re a Facebook
user, perhaps you’ve noticed that your newsfeed has become a much happier place
over the last few weeks as many people have begun using their status updates as
an opportunity to give thanks. People
have offered up thanks for family, friends, jobs, churches, and health - just
to name a few. These offerings of thanks
have pushed to the edges the usual status updates that tend to complain about,
well, family, friends, jobs, churches, and health – just to name a few.
What’s
made the difference? Have people’s lives
dramatically changed over the last few weeks?
Probably not. My guess is that
the difference is primarily found in the fact that people, prompted by the Thanksgiving
holiday, have become more intentional in looking for reasons to be
thankful. In other words, they’ve just
taken the time to look beyond the surface of things (most of the reasons we
complain are found on the surface of things!) to the deeper realities of
life. There, in those moments of
reflection, people almost always find a reason to be grateful. To our great surprise, these reasons for
thanks often lie just below the very things we so often complain about (ie.
family, friends, church, jobs).
We know it
doesn’t take a holiday to live this way – or at least it shouldn’t take a
holiday to live this way. It does take
the discipline of reflection and the time to see the deeper truths of
life. That requires a slowing down in
our living. When our lives are crowded,
even with good things, we tend to only notice the irritations. But when we slow down, when we give ourselves
time to think about the people and things in our lives we leave room for the
surprise of discovering gifts where we previously thought only frustrations
could be found.
Take time
today, to pause, reflect, and give thanks.
I will give thanks to the LORD because of his
righteousness;
I will sing the praises of the name of the LORD Most High – Psalm 7:17
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