Count your blessings

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15

Then one of them [a leper], when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet, and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan… Luke 17:15-16

We teach our children to say please and thank you. In time, hopefully, it becomes ingrained in them and they do it out of habit because they know it’s expected. But often, especially in the very early years, it can be a bit grudging: we’ve all seen a small child say thank you with quite a scowl on their face. Are we therefore teaching them to be hypocritical? Of course not – assuming that we teach them kindly and lovingly. We do it in the hope that as they grow and learn a bit about the world and about relationships it will become both natural and genuine.

The Bible has a lot to say about thankfulness. In Colossians 3:15 Paul encourages the members of the church in Colosse to “let the peace of God rule in your hearts”; and then adds, almost as a separate thought, “And be thankful”.

Have we, I wonder, learned to be thankful? After all, if we as Christians don’t have a spirit of thankfulness – of gratitude – who will? In the early church the very word for thanksgiving – eucharist - became the name by which what we today may call the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, or the Breaking of bread, or the Mass, was better known. In essence the receiving of bread and wine is an act of humble thanksgiving to God for the grace and kindness he has shown us in Christ. And that spirit of thankfulness should permeate our daily lives.

In 1897 an American called Johnson Oatman wrote a hymn that became famous enough throughout the world for me as a small boy to be singing it in a south London Sunday School fifty-plus years later. It began with words, “When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed…”, and each verse highlighted a different example of the hardships and troubles we might encounter in our Christian lives day by day. The message was simple: Even in the midst of these troubles there are things we should be thankful for, and so the chorus ran: “Count your blessings, name them one by one; /Count your blessings, see what God has done; /Count your blessings, name them one by one, /And it will surprise you what the Lord has done”.

Looking back now with adult eyes it seems a little glib, even corny. But the thought is surely right. To learn the habit of looking for the blessings we receive, in hard times and easy, is to build into our characters a very precious trait.

Sadly, not every adult learns it, even among Christian people.

The problem with many of us is that we take things for granted – we develop an attitude of “entitlement”: “Of course I expect good things to fall into my lap, so why should I bother to be thankful? It’s my right!”

But of course it isn’t – no more, at least, than it is the right of some unfortunate soul, perhaps in a desperately poor country, who barely has enough to eat each day - and it is arrogant and presumptuous of us to think otherwise. This is what gives rise to “spoiled brat syndrome”, the richly endowed person who, as soon as he or she doesn’t get their way, starts to “throw their toys out of the pram”.

I don’t know if the playwright G B Shaw had much sympathy with religion in general or Christianity in particular (though he did write a play called “Major Barbara” which, I believe, dealt sympathetically with a Salvation Army officer of that name). Shaw wrote this: “This is the true joy in life: being used for a purpose… being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy”.

Ouch? I wonder if any of us answer to that description… a “feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances”?

Sometimes, if we honestly try to count our blessings, they may be hard to find; especially if we are passing through a time of serious difficulty. But even quite small things may be a blessing: a friendly neighbour greeting us in the street; a glimpse of a smile on the face of a baby; an unexpected contact from a long-forgotten friend; a particularly enjoyable meal; and one could go on. However seemingly small, such things are precious, and we should savour them.

In Luke 17 we read the story of the ten men with leprosy. Jesus healed them all, but to his obvious disappointment only one of them “returned to thank him”. “Where are the other nine?” Jesus wondered – and the one was a “foreigner” (a despised Samaritan, in fact).

The fact is that to develop a habit of thankfulness will make us both better people – humbler people - and happier people. More Christlike people. Have you noticed how people who might be like G B Shaw’s “little clod of ailments  and grievances” are rarely happy, generous or kind? Too busy fixated on themselves? It was said of Jesus that he “made himself nothing… and humbled himself” (Philippians 2). Yet he was, and is, the Lord of glory.

If that isn’t an example to follow, well, I really don’t know what is.

Loving Father, grant me a thankful, grateful and generous heart. Remove from me any hint of self-entitlement and teach me to be more focussed on making other people happy than thinking of myself. Amen.