Please and thank you. Simple words, but words that make an impact and leave a lasting impression. Kind words. Words of acknowledgement and appreciation. Words that encourage. I was raised to use these words. “Please” when you were asking for something and “thank you” when you received something. As I was growing up, I often heard “What do you say?” to remind me that I hadn’t said “please” or “thank you.” It was polite to do so and manners were important.
Soooo....I have a pet peeve. I don’t know about you but it seems to me that there’s a whole lot of people out there who have forgotten their manners! Are “please” and “thank you” words that are no longer said? Are they no longer important or necessary? Is it not in vogue to be polite anymore or to share such niceties? Do we no longer have to express appreciation for having received something from someone? I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve given a gift for a birthday, a baby shower, a wedding, or a graduation, and never received a thank you. I’ve actually changed the form of monetary gifts from cash to checks just to make sure the recipient got the gift. Ouch! Really?! I confess that all this lack of gratitude has really soured my desire to give future gifts to this ungrateful brood….bah, humbug!
But seriously, please don’t think I haven’t prayed about this, because I have. I don’t like feeling this way but I’ve never been able to see it as anything other than ungratefulness which leaves me feeling ungenerous! That is, until I came across a passage from the Old Testament in Deuteronomy. The devotional wasn’t about thankfulness at all, but as we know, the Word of God is alive and active and judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). And as God so often does, He used His Word to speak to me about this matter that weighed so heavily on my heart. But what He said didn’t have to do with the ungratefulness of others, rather it had to do with MY thankfulness and MY generosity.
Deuteronomy 16:10 Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you. 14 Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. 15b For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.16b No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: 17 Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.
To be clear, this passage is talking about celebrating festivals held to honor what the Lord had done for the Jews. They were annual gatherings to remember God’s faithfulness to His people and their offerings were a way to say “thank you” to Him. Hmmm….gifts and thank you’s! Suddenly, words like:
celebrate…
freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you…
be joyful…
the Lord your God will bless you in all the work of your hands…
your joy will be complete…
no one should appear empty-handed…
bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you…
jumped off the page and spoke to me about Who the real Giver is and how the gifts I give are only because of how generous God has been to me!
And just like that, it became clear that it’s not important for ME to receive a thank you because my joy is found in thanking the One who has abundantly blessed me and enabled me to be able to give good gifts. My gifts can be given as a measure of His generosity, and I should never be stingy or appear empty-handed.
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
God has blessed me. So, if out of that abundance, He has assigned to me good works that include giving gifts to those who are ungrateful, then so be it because God Himself is kind to the ungrateful (Luke 6:35).
Now, don’t get me wrong, “please” and “thank you” are good words to say and we should say them as often as possible to one another. But since Scripture tells us that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), it’s important to consider that in our giving, rather than focus on receiving thanks for our gift, we need to thank the One who makes our giving possible. Being thankful is where we find the blessing. For our God gives abundantly and is able to do abundantly more than we ask or imagine. He supplies our every need according to His riches. In addition, every good and perfect gift is from Him anyway. So, I’m not going to look for the credit (i.e. a thank you) for any gifts I give, but rather I hope that my generosity will always result in thanksgiving being given to God…where it belongs.
Now, if anyone thanks me, I appreciate it. I truly do. But if they don’t, that’s okay because…
I will give thanks to YOU, Lord, with all my heart! (Psalm 9:1a)
