Please and Thank you are somewhat out of fashion. People do not say these simple words as regularly or responsively as before. Truly grateful people express their gratitude meaningfully and purposefully. Grateful living is gracious living. 

A well-ordered life includes routine and rhythmic recitation of true gratitude. 

Thankful hearts say so. 

Gratitude overflows. 

Rick Warren, the one Southern Baptists said is no longer in “friendly cooperation,” wrote a book on different kinds of Bible study back in the 1980s. One of those methods includes asking a number of questions about each Bible text. One of those questions asks, “Is there something to thank God for?”

We tend to find what we are looking for. When we look for something to thank God for, we do not have to look for long or go very far. The more we look for something to thank God for, the more we see, the more gratitude becomes a deeply embedded habit. 

Yesterday was the longest stretch of daylight of the year. Today, the sun begins moving away bit by bit until we get to the shortest amount of daylight six months from now. As one who loves the long days of summer, the thought that the days are getting shorter for the next six months makes me a little sad. 

The fact that these one-hundred-degree days and the associated Temperature Humidity Index will eventually chill down a bit makes me happier. Walking to the mailbox one day recently, I thanked God for the bright sunny days of summer. I also thanked they are not always this hot. On one of the coldest days of winter, I had a similar conversation in the opposite direction.

What are you grateful for right now? What three things quickly come to mind? A well-ordered day begins with gratitude. Abundance is more about the condition of our hearts than the possessions stored in our homes, garages, and bank accounts.

This evening I will write something good in my gratitude journal. I am on the lookout now for what will find its way into writing tonight. 

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I will be on the lookout for something good to happen today. 

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Our Father, quite simply, all of life should be shaped by gratitude. You give us air to breathe, food to eat, thoughts to think, kindness to demonstrate, and words of gratitude to celebrate it all. Even the worst of life reminds us of the best. The losses of life point us toward those things enduring forever. Empower us to live lives well-ordered and shaped by gratitude. Amen.