November, 1941
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
418
By ROBERT G. LEE* Memphis, Tennessee "In every thing give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:18).
■ E NEVER APPROACH Goa without cause fo r . gratitude. Thankfulness, a duty and de the declarative mood of gratitude—a bright fire in the world’s frigid zone, the memory and homage of the heart, a master force in soiil-building, the great est tonic faith has. “Be ye thankful.” I.. Giving Thanks Is a Good Thing. “It is a good thing to give thanks un to the Lord” (Psa. 92:1). Giving thanks enriches the grateful heart. Gratitude is evidence of a noble nature. Ingratitude is “a marble-hearted fiend.” Shakespeare says: “I hate ingratitude more in man Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness. Or any trait of vice, whose strong .corruption Inhabits our frail blood.” He further declares: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it'is To have a thankless child.” Another writer has said: “ He that’s ungrateful has no guilt but one; And other crimes may pass for vir tues in him.” The thief may have in him streaks of honesty, the liar impulses to tell the truth, the libertine some desires to be pure. But none of these mitigating qual ities is in the ingrate. Trust the ungrate ful soul With money, and he will steal it; with honor, and he will betray it; with virtue, and he will violate it; with a blood-bequeathed legacy, and he will hand it down reduced in quantity and in quality. ■ An old legend tells how gratitude, though it be the ornament of rhetoric, is the libel of practical life. Two angels —Angel Requests and Angel Thanks— come from heaven every morning and go on their errands all day long. Soon Angel Requests has his basket full. But, the day ended, Angel Thanks has but few expressions of gratitude in his basket. •Patter, Bellevue Bapttet Church
Postal officials tell us that before Christmas they receive tons of letters written to Santa Claus, but after Christ mas few letters, of thanks are sent to him. From childhood onward, human beings seem characterized by thankless ness. The giving of thanks is good. God has two dwellings—-one in heaven, the other in a thankful heart—and unless the vaster music of gratitude rolls through one’s years, one’s life is a mournful monotony of jangling inharmony. II. To Whom Give Thanks? “Thanks be unt5 God” (2 Cor. 9:15). Thank God, the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, ypt. who dwells with him who is of an humble and con trite heart. Thank God, who holds the world in the hand of His omnipotence and beneath the eye of His omniscience, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom all our thoughts and works are known, by whom the hairs of our heads are numbered and our footsteps directed, and df whom each of us should cry, “To Him I owe my life and breath, And all the joys I have.” To God, the Designer behind all de signs, the Lawmaker behind all law, the Creator behind all creation, the supreme Fact of history, science, philosophy, and personal life — to Him' we owe our thanks. To Him who redeems our lives from destruction, crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies, and satis fies the mouth with good things—to Him we owe our thanks. “ O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer’s praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace!” III. For What Give Thanks? “In every thing give thanks” (1 Thess. 5:18). “Giving thanks always for all things . . . in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20), “Every thing” and “all things” pre sent a long list. We can consider only a few major matters. 1. For blood-bequeathed legacies. America respects the conscience and
religions convictions of every individual and ever) riiurch, recognizes no distinc tion between religious majorities and re ligious minorities, grants unto all equal ity before the law and equality of op portunity. These privileges were bought at the cost of sacrifices the present generation did not make. We drink from wells we did not dig, reap from fields we did not sow, eat from orchards we did not plant,'find refuge in structures we did not build. In the ringing of every church bell are the groans of many who died in the struggle for re ligious liberty. Because of the toil and sufferings of others, the wilderness be came, for us, a garden, and the solitude became a city. s 2, For trials and tribulations. Let our losses and afflictions be what they may, still it is true that God has not dealt with us after our desert, nor rewarded us according to our iniquity. Yea, the trials themselves are the ef fects of love, and are designed to work together, for our highest welfare. How thankful we should be, then, for anxiety and galling loads, for the sweet and the bitter, for the calm and the storm, for balm and for battle bruises, for con genial and for torturing circumstances, for sickness and for health! Are there financial losses? Perhaps you have been drawn closer to God by them, and they have caused you to see that a man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses. Have loved ones died? Maybe that hard experience has caused you to set your affections on things above. Can you of fer thanks even through a mist of tears caused by grief and suffering? Then, ’tis good ’tis so. Ruskin said: “Among my chief calamities I had nothing to endure.” Our trials, losses, disappoint ments, sufferings, and sorrows are often among our deepest causes for giving thanks. God, providing for our material life, provides for this life and for the life to come. In all our trials we walk by faith—not by sight. We are getting ready for eternity, and we may trust Him, whatever befalls, for “His sea is great though our boats be small.”
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