Gratitude

Why, hello there!

If you're a new visitor to my blog, welcome!! If you're not new... welcome back! I'm so glad you've decided to check out what I have to say today. If you look to your right (I'd make a splendid tour guide, wouldn't I...?), you'll be able to quickly find some of my most popular posts, as well as several other super awesome little gadgets. One of them is labeled "Great Sites to Check Out." I highly recommend following those links and have fun exploring!

Now, I've shared a bit about different aspects of my beliefs and knowledge. Today, I'm going to talk about one more that I hope can be universally agreed upon: The importance of gratitude.



To begin, here are a few great scriptures relating to gratitude:

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord..." -Psalms 92:1 (I'd even say it's more than a good thing; I think it's a pretty fantastic thing!)

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts... and be ye thankful." -Colossians 3:15 (I love that one cuz it just says it like it is: Be ye thankful.)

"And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more." -Doctrine and Covenants 78:19 (That's A LOT of blessings. All we have to do is be grateful!)

What do you get from those scriptures? (Seriously, I would love to hear what you think--in a comment, a message, a text, whatever. However you can get a hold of me, I'd like to hear your thoughts, rather than keep goin' on about my own.)

So, when we are grateful for what we have (and, I might add, appropriately humble), the Lord will bless us with more. Maybe we won't--actually, I'm pretty sure we don't always recognize them right away. But we can still show that gratitude to the Lord.

For example, I know I'd be on my knees in prayer all week long if I listed every single thing I'm thankful for. A lot of times, I thank Him very specifically for certain blessings (people, food, jobs, education, freedoms, etc.), but I also thank Him for all that I have been blessed with. Even--perhaps especially--for those things I might take for granted or not be fully aware of. And if we ask Him to, He'll certainly remind us of additional blessings we may have overlooked.

One more scripture:

"And behold also, if I, whom ye call your king, who has spent his days in your service, and yet has been in the service of God, do merit any thanks from you, O how you ought to thank your heavenly King!

"I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another--

"I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, be lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another--I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants." -Mosiah 2:19-21

Wow.

"If ye should serve him with all your whole souls... ye would be unprofitable servants."

The Lord owes us nothing. He has given us all that have and all that we are. Yet, the only thing He wants in return is our hearts. Our minds. Our love. Our gratitude. He wants us. And the only way He can have us is if we give ourselves to Him. That's because of another gift He's given us--one of the greatest gifts of all, which is the freedom of choice. Free agency. He will not force us to give ourselves and our gratitude to Him. He only yearns for us to.

Even if it's a man holding the door open for you, or a girl giving you a smile, or a father coming home from work, or a mother doing the dishes, or a friend listening... No matter who's doing the giving, or what kind of giving he or she is doing, that person deserves our thanks, as does God. Can we always give thanks directly to that person? No.

I've had a meal (a pretty pricey one, at that) paid for by the people at a table across from us. My date and I hadn't said a single word to them, and we didn't find out what they'd done until after they'd left. To this day, we have no idea who they were; I don't know how we could go about thanking them personally.

A couple of strangers once found my dad's car keys on the top of my car's trunk while I was in class. They put the keys in a little bucket, hung it on my antenna, and left an anonymous note. To this day, I have no idea who they were.

A man in a bookstore once sparked a conversation with me and encouraged me to go for my dreams and get a book published. Has this happened? No, and it may never happen. But his kind words of encouragement were greatly appreciated. I don't even remember his name (although I'm pretty sure it started with an "S", if that counts), and I never had a way to contact him.

Those are just three examples of some people who have done me good, whom I don't know how to thank.

But.

I can thank God for placing them in my path and for their kind acts toward me. And then to further show my appreciation, I can serve others. After all, "...when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17). By serving others, I'm serving God.

Thank you so much for reading this post. In closing, I'd like to share a few additional things I'm grateful for. I am grateful for my many opportunities in education and developing my talents. I'm grateful for the technology that allows me to share my thoughts with you. I'm so thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and my Heavenly Father. I'm grateful for the scriptures and the blessing of prayer. Finally, I'm thankful for my invaluable membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which I know to be Christ's Church.

I'd like to...
Learn more about Jesus Christ: http://mormon.org/beliefs/jesus-christ
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