“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates vision for tomorrow.” Anonymous

Yesterday we took time to honor veterans, and were privileged to have five with us. It was a wonderful to have them with us, to take time to honor them for their courage and bravery, and to thank them for their service to our country. Some of our students had made special “Thank You” cards for them. It was priceless to watch as the students shared their cards with our guests.

I have been thinking about the word gratitude. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines gratitude as “the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful.”

I like what John Ortberg in his book, “When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box,” states about gratitude. He says, “Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It opens us up to wonder, delight, and humility. It makes our hearts generous. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation … Gratitude is the gift God gives us that enables us to be blessed by all his other gifts, the way our taste buds enable us to enjoy the gift of food. Without gratitude, our lives degenerate into envy, dissatisfaction, and complaints, taking what we have for granted and always wanting more.”

There is an account found in Luke 17:11-19, about ten lepers crying out to Jesus for help. Lepers were commanded to make their presence know by shouting “Unclean, unclean,” so that anyone near them would not accidently touch them. Somehow these lepers must have heard about Jesus and his power to heal, and so from a distance they yelled, “Jesus, Lord, have mercy on us.” Jesus’ heart was moved. He told them to go show themselves to the priests, which is interesting in that earlier he had healed a leper by touching him, now he is asking these lepers to go and show themselves before they had been healed. I can only imagine that they might have been a little confused by this command, but they had nothing to lose. The ten left Jesus and something happened. As they traveled they were healed. I am sure that the thrill of being healed and restored was overwhelming and so they ran home to tell their families, friends, and neighbors what had happened. All except one. One of the former lepers turned and ran back the way he had just come in order to fall on the ground before Jesus in gratitude.

Gratitude is always an act of humility. Unfortunately, many believe that they will experience gratitude more if they received new stuff, the stuff they really want. Yet the truth is that having too much can make a person feel entitled rather than grateful. According to researchers Robert Emmons and Mike McCullough gratitude can be learned. They did a study where by they randomly assigned people to keep a daily diary for two weeks of events in their lives. One group was to record happenings that they were grateful for, and the other hassles or simply life events. Joy, happiness, and life satisfaction all rocketed up for those in the gratitude group.

My advice is do not wait until you “feel” grateful or thankful before giving thanks. Usually thinking and doing lead to the emotions. Begin today to express gratitude and you will begin to change the world around you.

Thanks for reading.