A Time to Be Thankful and Say
So
Back in the days when I was
teaching at NDSCS, it would occasionally strike me that I had much
to be thankful for. Yet at the same time there was a trio of
mutterers that I couldn’t spend ten minutes with before their
complaining would begin to cloud up the sunny day I was enjoying. It
was always the same litany of discontent, “Why do we have eighteen
contact hours instead of twelve like they have over in the greener
pastures state?
Why are we paid $20,000 less
then over in Minnesota? How am I supposed to teach three separate
preparations back to back? Why can’t Dean X be more intelligent
about his scheduling?” Predictably, all three found enough reasons
to move away to greener pastures, which they discovered were mined
with too many cow pies. Go figure.
The scriptures tell us to
avoid whiners: “Blessed is the man who walketh not in the council of
the ungodly, nor siteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight
is in the law of the Lord and in that word he meditates day and
night.” Such a person “will be like a tree planted by the rivers of
water whose leaf never withers.” The children of Israel left Egypt
protected and enriched by God’s grace, but many soon complained
their way into the destruction awaiting them as they forged their
golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
These days the national
nightly news is 90% bad and 10% so-so, giving many complainers ample
reason to simply quit working, go on welfare and “chill” their way
into old age and “the big chill.”
So is there any antidote
for this great malaise? Thankfully there is: Praise. We are told we
have a God who “inhabits the praises of his people.” (Ps. 22:3) Once
one gets that truth past his busy brain and into the light of the
heart’s understanding, things of the Spirit brighten up fast. Here’s
a little meditation I did a few years back when I discovered the
magic of gratitude and praise:
“An Invitation”
Holy Spirit make your home within my heart;/ Make the ramparts of my
breath your banister./ Come and make yourself at home/ Make my easy
chair your throne./ Let Messiah’s lovely fragrance/ Fill my home./
“Let the fragments of my
fallen nature die;/ Rose of Sharon, my perfume, Come wafting by./
Bring to life God’s mighty word,/ Let each syllable be heard/ That
my spirit might arise with His and fly.
Give me ears to hear
sweet Spirit, ears to hear/ When Your lovely voice sings raptures to
my soul./ Let each beauteous syllable/ Bring understanding rich and
full/ And I no more let my darkness pull me down; As I rise on
strains of Heaven’s uplifting Song./
How the entrance of God’s
word brings in the Light./ Even as it did when great Isaiah sang:/
“Arise! Shine! for thy Light has come”/ And all the bells in God’s
great kingdom rang/ And every angel raised his voice and sang./
In your presence, Lord,
is fullness of great joy/ What a place to end my waning earthly
years/ What a way to end my days/ In a sacrament of Praise/ Till
only Joy and Joy alone/ Brings forth my tears;/ Only Joy and Joy
alone shall crown my years.”
That little afternoon
meditation back years ago came as I remembered the times during
praise and worship services in those fairly normal (pre-covid) days,
that the Presence of God “inhabiting our praise” was so weighty that
people often fell out with the power of it.
A scripture tells us to
“Put on the garment of praise/ To fight the spirit of
heaviness;/ Lift up your voice and sing!” Don’t laugh. The idea once
pervaded our culture, “Whenever I feel afraid/ I lift my head up
high/ And whistle a happy tune/ So no one will believe I’m afraid.”
(The King and I.”)
And Johnny Appleseed was
thankful too, “The Lord is good to me/ And so I thank the Lord/ For
giving me the things I need/ The sun, the rain and the apple seed/
The Lord is good to me.”
Ingratitude is one of the
greatest sins, especially if you’re an American with all the
blessings of liberty our forefathers won for us. Shakespeare’s King
Lear saw ingratitude in his two monster daughters who cast him out
into a storm once they took over his kingdom, “Ingratitude, thou
marble hearted fiend...Is it not as though this mouth should bite
this hand for lifting food to it?”
Here is the truth that might
free us from any foolish notion of earned entitlement, “Every good
and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the father of
lights in whom there is no caprice nor shadow of turning.”
There’s a name for our
gifting: grace -- “How gracious is that grace of His, the day we
first believe.”
Gene Pinkney 4/30/23 For the
Daily News
