"Our Living Prayer of Gratitude" - Luke 17:11-19 - 4/2/06
Tonight we continue our Lenten series on prayer. We began with the
recognition that prayer is our primary relationship to God as we embrace
God's presence at the core of our being. We have looked at the
importance of admitting our mistakes to God and starting each day anew
as we seek to grow in our pray journey. We heard the inspiring prayer from
Godspell : as we seek to see God more clearly, love God more dearly, and
follow God more nearly all the days of our life. Last week we focused on
our witness of prayer and the ways we touch our world as a praying people.
Tonight we are going to look at the importance of our lives as a living
prayer of gratitude. I want to begin my asking each of you to turn to
someone near you and tell them 5 things for which you are grateful for this
evening. Then take turns and let the other person share 5 things for which
they are grateful for tonight.
Can you feel what happened in this room for those couple of minutes.
There was such joy, and praise, and gratitude for the ways that we are truly
blessed. If only for a couple of minutes the things that stress us, the
problems and concerns that we all have disappeared and we rested in the
loving arms of gratitude.
Gratitude is a choice. It you noticed in the scripture reading for this
evening one of lepers who had been healed did a u turn right back to Jesus
to offer his gratitude. We can make the choice every day to live lives full of
gratitude. G. K. Chesterton as quoted in Different Seasons by Dale Turner
says the following:
"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert
and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace
before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, and
swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I
dip the pen in ink."
We can begin each new activity throughout our day with a brief prayer of
grace thanking God for what is about to happen, thanking God for the
blessings we have and the blessings we are about to receive, thanking
God that we can be a blessing.
As we cultivate a life of gratitude we recognize that life is truly a
blessing. Having an attitude of gratitude begins by recognizing that all of
what we have is a trust from God. God has given to each of us friends, a
home, food, gifts that we can use to make the world a better place. God
has provided all that we need in this given moment in time. Everything we
need for our journey. An attitude of gratitude practices a faith that trusts in God’s provision.
To wake up in the morning is to feel the breath of God entering our
lungs. As we go about our days we feel, touch, listen, to the signs of
God's presence blessing us. The people we meet, the circumstances that
challenge us, the joys and sadness that we experience can all become
opportunities to acknowledge our gratitude. For even in the worst of
times God is present offering courage and hope for the moments of
struggle. Look for God's many blessings in your days and offer your
prayers of gratitude for God's faithful presence on the journey.
Living with gratitude maximizes the positive and minimizes the
negative. There is a little lyric that goes like this: " two people looked out
from behind prison bars, one saw mud, the other stars."
Is the glass half full or is it half empty? We can go through life spending
our time complaining (for there is always something to complain about) -
bad weather, a traffic jam, not having enough money, a horrible job. ..the
list goes on. Or we can spend our time being grateful for having a roof over
our heads, people who care about us, food on the table. ...and the list goes
on. An attitude of gratitude leads us to focus on what we have, not on what
we don't have or what we think we need. As we develop an attitude of
gratitude our life begins to take on a different focus, to be transformed. As
you go throughout your day when those negative things begin to creep in to
and see what begins to happen. Indeed practicing gratitude can change
our way of seeing ourselves, others, and our world.
As we develop an attitude of gratitude we can't help but to bless
the lives of others. What we have been given, who we are in the core of
our beings, is meant to be shared with others. To share a smile, to laugh
with another person, to hold someone in our arms, to offer words of
forgiveness, to go the extra mile with a difficult person, to speak words of
hope, to share a meal with a lonely person are all ways that we bless the
lives of others. T o give of our time, talents, and financial resources to our
church, to those in need are all tangible ways that we acknowledge our
deep gratitude as a blessed and blessing people.
As you begin this new week I want to ask each of us to begin each
day and end each day by listing five ways in which God has blessed us. As
you wake up in the morning thank God for the gift of life. Look for the
positive as you go about your day. And remember each day to share your
blessings with those around you. A life filled with gratitude will overflow to
enliven our world.