Latitude of Gratitude

As Jesus was walking by a certain city on his way to Jerusalem, ten lepers sitting outside the city gate cried and begged Jesus to heal them. Jesus immediately healed them and sent them to see the priest of the city. Only one of ten men came back to thank Jesus for healing him of leprosy. Would you have thanked Jesus for healing you of a terrible disease? I would have thought that each and every one of those ten men would have been so excited that they would have thanked Jesus profusely! How thankful are we to what God has given us, or others have done for us?

Thank God today for something you appreciate.
Thank someone you know for something they have done for you.
Thank a stranger for a kind deed.
Be thankful!

I want to thank each of you that follow my blog, I am so blessed to have met you, and I appreciate each and every one of you awesome people!

“To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude
means to take nothing for granted,
but to always seek out and value
the kind that will stand behind the action.
Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course.
Everything originates in a will for the good,
which is directed at you.
Train yourself never to put off
the word or action for the expression of gratitude.”
Albert Schweitzer

Luke 17: 11-19

Do Not Pass?

This morning, I was on a four-lane highway, driving to Best Buy. For about a half-mile there were warning signs… “Road Blocked Off”, “Do Not Pass”.
As I waited in the correct line, along with other drivers, vehicles were flying past us in the forbidden lane.
Way up ahead in the distance, I could see these vehicles pulling in-front of the line.
I thought to myself, what is the school of thought going on in those driver’s minds?
Did they feel an accomplishment to move ahead of others by cheating and cutting in line?
Did they feel their time was more important than those people whom they did not know?
Could they possibly have not seen the many road signs of warning?
These are questions I will never know the answer to, but I wonder if that is how they operate in their every day affairs.
Can you feel good about stepping on others to get to where you want to be?
Do you live your life with the attitude, you are more important than anyone else?

“Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
Mark Twain

“I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
Étienne de Girêllet

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Philippians 2:3-8 (NASB)

(Image source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DrivesLikeCrazy)

Go to the Ant!

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:” (Proverbs 6:6).

As I was cutting the grass in my front yard today, I plowed over many large ant mounts. We are having quite an outbreak in our yard recently.

It seems, no matter how many times I spray them with poison, or run over their lofty colonies, they either rebuild the same one, or go make a new one.

They don’t stop and they don’t give up!

They do not stop and say, “Hey I am tired of building this same home over and over again.” “I don’t feel like making that long hike to those grains
of sugar.” They just do it.

How persistent are you about your work and the things that you need to do on a regular basis?

Do you say, “Why should I keep cleaning this bathroom? It’s only going to get dirty again the next time it is used.”
Well maybe you’re not that slack, but I am sure you can think of something in your life that you know you should do, that you are not persistently, or consistently, doing as much, or as often, as you should.

The next time you have the thought, “Why should I keep doing this over and over again?” think of those little ants out there just trudging along and be encouraged to keep on keeping on!