Time to record a talk I am giving tomorrow...
I was asked to give a talk on cultivating an attitude of
gratitude and was given a quote by Thomas S. Monson. He said, “We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain
in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of
gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered
among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of
virtues.” I thought it was
interesting that I would be asked to give a talk on this subject as well as
President Monson’s quote since I have been on an autobiography kick
lately. The last 2 books that I have
read have been the books put out by Elizabeth Smart and Stephanie Nielson. Elizabeth Smart being a kidnap victim and
Stephanie Nielson a survivor of a fire that disfigured 80 % of her body. These 2 girls had horrible things happen to
their bodies and yet their books were full of thanksgiving to their Father in
Heaven who had provided so much for them during their life changing experiences. Even with what they had been through they can
say now as President Monson said, “We
can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm
of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude.”
My first thought
went to prayers when I started studying this topic. What better way to thank our Heavenly Father
than that of saying our daily, sincere prayers.
I then thought of the order in which our prayers are to be given. Maybe we are told to thank our Father in
Heaven for the daily blessing in our lives first,
before asking for things we believe that are needed, because it reminds us that
He is always blessing us. For example, let’s
say we have had a hard trial in our lives. Maybe it is a job loss. We immediately want to go to our Father in Heaven
to ask Him to send a job our way. But
wait. We know we are taught to first
address Heavenly Father in our prayers and give thanks before we ever ask for
anything. So we do just that. We start off with the usual daily things we
have. He has blessed us with another day
to live with our healthy families. We
are warm in our homes. We have a running
vehicle and the list goes on. And somewhere
along those thank yous, we realize that we were counseled to have food storage. And we know right then and there that we are
not being picked on. We know of others
in our same situation and suddenly we don’t feel so sorry for ourselves. We know His hand is in our lives and we are grateful
He prepared us years in advance as we built up our food storage.
There is nothing
wrong with asking the Lord for those things that we need but when we start a
prayer in a certain order, what we set out for our original prayer to include,
just might end up changing. And now we
are in a more positive state of mind.
Spencer W.
Kimball said, “Adults as well as the youth are often guilty, being disobedient
and unthankful to their Heavenly Father who gives them all. Many fail to show their gratitude through
service, through family prayers, through the payment of their tithes, and in
numerous other ways God has a right to expect.”
Here Spencer W.
Kimball points out different ways we can express our gratitude to our Heavenly
Father. I wanted to add to his list.
David gave a talk
a few weeks ago on the importance of journal keeping. Early in our marriage, I decided that for one
year I would begin each journal entry with what I was grateful for that day in
particular. I can still remember sitting
at our dinner table, journal in front of me, and looking out the window. It was raining outside. A calm, silent rain. I am a lover of loud thunderstorms but we
were living in Rexburg, Idaho
at the time and they don’t have those kinds of thunderstorms like I was used to
in Oklahoma. But I was still thankful for that rain. It was peaceful and everything felt
right. It made for a much different and
meaningful journal entry.
Another
suggestion: As a youth, I can remember a
certain temple trip to Dallas,
Texas. As we were waiting to begin baptizing for the
dead, a temple worker asked us all what we were thankful for. The trick was that when she got to each of us
we were not allowed to say we were thankful for the gospel or Jesus, or our
family, etc… We had to be creative and
really think about it. It was the first
time in my life that I thought of how grateful I was for my bed. Can you imagine sleeping on a floor every
night?
I would like to
touch back on prayer. I was listening to
a devotional once and the man speaking suggested setting up a time where you
only thanked Heavenly Father in your
prayers. No asking for things. He spoke of how he would do this on his way
to work sometimes. It peeked my interest
because at that time I was traveling 30-40 minutes to my job. I thought I could do this also. An interesting thing happened. At first, I was amazed at how hard it
was. You begin thanking Heavenly Father
and before you know it, you are just naturally asking Him for things. It was a habit. I knew then that I had another thing to work
on: eliminating repetition in my prayers.
But before long, I was finally able to give sincere, thankful
prayers. Repetition seemed to go away as
I felt I was becoming that little child just learning how to pray. You know the prayers I am talking about. “Thank you Heavenly Father for bugs, and for
flowers, and for rocks, and for grass and my new toy…..”
Another suggestion
would be to change our casual conversations with others. In Oklahoma
I often heard people there saying things like, “You must have been listening to
the spirit when you told me that.” And
then they would go on to explain to the other person how they were struggling
with something in particular. People in
the Bible Belt easily put into their everyday conversations what the Lord had
blessed them with. And they aren’t always members of the same church. They just openly speak to each other that way
when they feel they were blessed with something that could have only came from
God. It makes me think of a Psalm in
105:1-3
“O give thanks
unto the Lord; call upon his name: make
known his deeds among the people. Sing
unto him, sing psalms unto him; talk ye of all his wondrous works. Glory ye in his holy name; let the heart of
them rejoice that seek the Lord.”
And most
importantly, let us not forget that it is a commandment to be grateful.
Marion G. Romney
said, “The Lord puts the commandment to be thankful among with other strong
commandments. He said, “Thou shalt love
the Lord they God with all thy heart, with all they might, mind, and strength;
and in the name of Jesus Christ though shalt serve him. Though shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt not steal; neither commit
adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it. Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all
things.” (D&C 59:5-7) It is perfectly evident from this scripture
that to thank the Lord in all things is not merely a courtesy. It is a commandment as binding upon us as any
other commandment.”
