Saturday, November 18, 2017
Yes Sir, Please.. Thank You
It was a rare event, almost as if those watching had
travelled several decades back in time. It was a quick and simple interaction
that left the waiter pleasantly surprised and wishing more people were like the
young man he had just served. It
happened in a small town restaurant. The young man who had just been seated was
approached by the waiter who offered him a cup of coffee. The young man responded with these five
words; “Yes sir, please, thank you.”
Give it a try.
Be polite in order to adjust your own spirit rather than being polite in
order to please or impress others.
Thanksgiving isn’t just a day to overeat and root for your ball team; it
is a day to adjust our attitudes and savor everything that is good about life, knowing
that they are all undeserved gifts. The next time God does something for you or
makes you an offer, say something like, “Yes
sir, please… thank you.”
The waiter had become so accustomed to customers just
grunting, saying, “yeah” and sometimes including a “please” or “thank you”, but
this patron pulled out all the stops. Although
the waiter enjoyed the respect and pleasantness that the young man brought to
the diner, those five words probably did more for the patron than they did for
the waiter.
·
“Yes sir”, reminded the young man that he should
value the person who was about to bring him his breakfast.
·
“Please”, reminded him that he was not better
than the waiter and that he did not have a right to be demanding or demeaning.
·
“Thank you”, reminded the young man that he was
being blessed by being served and that not a lot of people in the world have
the luxury of drinking coffee at a nice breakfast cafe.
While it may be true to say that “kind” people are polite, one
could make a good case that being polite is what makes people kind. What someone says changes how others think
about them. With that in mind, a wise
person will not wait for everything to be perfect before expressing their
respect and appreciation. Instead they
will express respect and appreciation in order to savor the goodness of life
and in order to insure that goodness can spill over into the lives of those
around them. Such kindness will not go
unnoticed, and its greatest benefit may go to the person going of their way to
express that kindness
As we approach Thanksgiving, we would do well to recognize
that we do not thank God and others just to be polite, we do it in order that
we might fully enjoy what we have been given by choosing to be grateful rather
than greedy, demanding or grumpy. This
principle holds true in all our conversations with God. When we pray, our approach will not only
affect how God hears us, but it will affect the way we experience life.
We worship God to remind ourselves who He is.
We say “please” when we pray because it reminds us that God
owes us nothing.
We thank God for what He has done, not to talk Him into
continuing to be nice, because He will be good no matter what we say or
do. We say “thank you” to remind
ourselves that God blesses us in many ways.
When we thank Him properly it help us redirect our minds from all the
things we think we need or all the things that we wish were going better toward
all the things He has provided and all the situations that have gone well.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Give or Lose
Two men sit in
the local diner sipping coffee.
“Happy” is
going on and on about his architect son and his daughter who is a stay-at-home
mom. He is reminiscing about how he worked
so hard to put his son through college and about how he just fixed his daughter’s
garage door opener. His life seems so
full and meaningful. He talks about how blessed he is to have
grandkids that he watches every other Saturday.
He used to watch them with his wife, but she passed away. He misses her but is so blessed to have his
grandchildren .
“Grumpy’s” demeanor
is dark and he snaps at the waitress, grumbling at the cost of coffee. He complains about his son who was so expensive
to raise. In fact both of his kids are
such a drain on his finances. He has
just spent a whole day doing repairs at his daughter’s house. He gripes about
how this Saturday will be a complete waste because he will be stuck at his
daughter’s house overseeing a mess of kids while she and her husband go out and
have a good time. It was so much easier
when his wife was alive, but now it’s just him, saddled with a bunch of high
energy kids who drive him crazy.
The two above men
are really one man with two possible responses to life. In the first case he is
a giver. In the second case he is a
loser. The only difference is how he
chooses to hold things – selfishly or selflessly. ” Remember the words of the Lord Jesus,
how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35b KJV) What if we measured
the quality our lives by how much we have given rather than how much we have
kept? When we are old, if we have little
because we have given much, we will probably still be happy. But, if we have much because we have given little,
we will probably be miserable and feel like we have been “used.”
Truth be told, in life everyone will
either give or lose. There is no way to
live without expending energy or sharing resources with others. If, every time we do something that benefits
someone else, we view it as something that costs us, we will feel like life or
people are taking from us. If, instead,
we view everything we do for or give to others as investing in others, we will
feel like we are helping someone. If we
give resentfully, we will feel miserable and used. If we give willingly, we can
feel happy and generous.
It could be that how you feel about
yourself and your world could be transformed simply by recognizing that life
costs everyone. Everyone who does a kind
deed or says a kind word loses something, but if they choose to treat it as
giving, it suddenly has a completely different feel.
Being a happy giver requires an
intentional perspective. Developing that
perspective might look something like this:
The next time you…
·
leave
a tip, think about how you blessed a struggling waitress
·
hold
the door for someone, think about how you brightened someone’s day
·
babysit
your relatives, you are providing a safe place for kids to flourish
·
pay a
tuition bill, you are investing in the lives of your children
·
go to
work, you are making a better life for your family
Life demands that we all give or
lose. Choose to be the happy and blessed
– think like a giver. The world will
seem like a better place and everyone around you will benefit.
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