Early One Morning

I wanted to share Rex’s Thanksgiving email to our church, with his permission, hope it’s a blessing to you too.

Thanksgiving is my favorite season of the year. It is such a wonderful time–so warm, so uncluttered, so family oriented. Joe Stowell says its the holiday commercialism forgot.

These past few days I have been thinking about what it is to truly have an attitude of gratitude. The attitude of gratitude gives you surviving power, which means you will not quit. Robert H. Schuller tells a story from his childhood in rural Iowa which has always intrigued me. He said, “I vividly remember the dust bowl years. When I was a child, in the thirties, the wind swept in from the Dakotas. It was dry, dusty, violent and fierce.  The wind became our enemy because it would peel off the dry, rich, black soil and swirl it like drifting dunes in the gullies and canyons of our fields. I shall never forget one particularly difficult year. We walked around our farm with white towels over our faces to keep from suffocating in the choking dust.

The harvest season came. My father would normally harvest a hundred wagons full of corn, but that year he harvested not the usual one hundred loads, but a meager half wagon load. I can still see the old wagon standing in the yard–only half full. It was a total crop failure, one that has never been equaled.

I shall never forget how, seated at the dinner table with his callused hands holding ours, my father looked up and thanked God. He said, ‘I thank you, God that I have lost nothing. For I have regained the seed I planted in the springtime.’ He used half a wagonload for seed; he got half a wagonload back.

His attitude of gratitude was that he had lost nothing while other farmers were complaining that they had lost ninety loads or a hundred loads. They counted their losses by what they could have harvested.

I’ll always remember my father saying, ‘You can never count up the might-have-beens or you will be defeated.’ Never look at what you have lost; look at what you have left.”

Whatever losses you may think you have suffered, thank God for what you have left and then offer the sacrifice of praise. I urge all of you to do that this week. In all our meetings this week we have talked and sung about our UP GOD IN A DOWN WORLD.

This is a wonderful opportunity to look around you and find someone to whom you can show kindness. One of our small groups this week told me that they are going to adopt a family to help during the holiday season. Several times during the week we have had the privilege of loading grocery bags full for needy people. One woman in tears told me that she had lost her job. I was grateful that we could help her.

One of the ways that we can show thankfulness to God for what He has done for us is by showing compassion to others. GOD IS CALLING US TO COMPASSION. Compassion will flow easily when we have an attitude of gratitude.

Why not consider giving a Thanksgiving offering to the Lord. Whether you give out of your abundance or out of your need, God will give you a blessing. You will be richer when you help provide for someone else. Last week an individual who has really had rough times, gave an offering to God. She planted a “seed of faith” and God is already blessing her in a spiritual way and I know that God is going to supply her personal needs.

When I think of having an attitude of gratitude, I like what Principal Watt of New College, Edinburgh, Scotland, prayed–”Grant me one gift more–a grateful heart.”

For God’s graciousness, and your faithfulness, I am truly grateful, Rex