BEAUTY IS GOD'S HANDWRITING

'Never lose an oppurtnity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's hand-writing - a wayside sacrament: welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, the fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in, simply and eaernestly, with all your eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.'

Charles Kingsley in Seth Lewis, The Language of Rivers and Stars, p.155.

SIN IS INGRATITUDE

'Radically and basically all sin is simply ingratitude.'
Karl Barth in Gilbert Meilaender, Thy Will Be Done, p.56

BEWARE!

'...the chief intoxicant of spiritual life: self-righteous ingratitude.'
Erik Varden, The Shattering of Loneliness, p.42.

THANKFULNESS IN SMALL THINGS

'Every bit of bread you eat, if you are a godly man or woman, Jesus Christ has bought it for you. You go to the market and buy your meat and drink with your money, but know that before you buy it, or pay money, Christ has bought it at the hand of God the Father with his blood. You have it at the hands of men for money, but Christ has bought it at the hand of his Father by his blood. Certainly it is a great deal better and sweeter now, though it is but a little.' 

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p.59. 

GRACE & GRATITUDE

'Grace and gratitude blong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo. Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightning.' 

Karl Barth in Eugene H Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p.192. 

THE GIFT OF SMALL THINGS

'When we are not grateful for the little things, it is only a very short step to no longer being grateful for anything. When we do not enjoy and savour and love and love and laugh and delight in the little things, then we are heading towards losing our delight in anything.' 

David Gibson, Destiny, p.135. 

A MOTIVATION TO THANKFULNESS

'Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things.'
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p.17.

SAYING GRACE

'...to say grace before a meal is among the highest and most honest expressions of our humanity....Here, around the table and before witnesses, we testify to the experience of life as a precious gift to be received and given again. We acknowledge that we do not and cannot live alone but are beneficiaries of the kindness and mysteries of grace upon grace.' 

Norman Wirzba in Tish Harrison Warner, Liturgy of the Ordinary, p.65. 

TIME

‘We measure time by its deaths, yes, and by its births. For time is also told by life. As some depart, others come. The hand opened in farewell remains open in welcome. I, who once had grandparents and parents, now have children and grandchildren. Like a flowing river that is yet always present, time that is always going is always coming. And that time is told by death and birth is held and redeemed by love, which is always present. Time, then, is told by love’s losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn welcomed into the womb. The great question for the old and dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last.’

Wendell Berry, Andy Catlett, p.119. 

THANKFULNESS

'...the ministry of remembering should be a bright thread running through all our Christian living - individually, corporately, publicly, privately; in the quiet moment of intimate prayer as well as in the open statements of public thanksgiving; for single people, for couples, for families, for churches, for communities, and for nations.'

Os Guiness, God in the Dark, p.53.

A CHRISTIAN

'...a hallelujah from head to foot...'
Augustine of Hippo in Os Guiness, God in the Dark, p.48.  

GRATITUDE

'The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of complaint. I can chose to be grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly. I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred.

There is always the choice between resentment and gratitude because God has appeared in my darkness, urged me to come home, and declared in a voice filled with affection: "You are with me always, and all I have is yours." Indeed, I can choose to dwell in the darkness in which I stand, point to those who are seemingly better off than I, lament about the many misfortunes that have plagued me in the past, and thereby wrap myself up in my resentment. But I don't have to do this. There is the option to look into the eyes of the One who came to search for me and see therein that all I am and all I have is pure gift calling for gratitude.

The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious. Because every gift I acknowledge reveals another and another until, finally, even the most normal, obvious, and seemingly mundane event or encounter proves to be filled with grace. There is an Estonian proverb that says: "Who does not thank for lttle will not thank for much." Acts of gratitude make one grafteful because, step by step, they reveal that all is grace.'

Henri JM Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p.85.

GRATITUDE

'When you lose sense of gratitude for your acceptance into God's Kingdom, you will lose your zeal for the work of that Kingdom. And you will live in daily pursuit and daily celebration of the purposes of some other kingdom.'

Paul David Tripp, Broken-Down House, p.184.

GIVING THANKS

'You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen into the ink.'
GK Chesterton in Julian Hardyman, Idols, p.37.