Gratitude

After three years of not being able to find a decent job, I was blessed with a job for ninety one days working at Cajun Co-op Sugarcane Mill in New Iberia, Louisiana. My hours were 3PM to 11PM seven days a week with no days off.   Many days we worked doubles when we were short staff. Many days I shamefully could not appreciate or even acknowledge the many blessing I had been given much less give thanks for them.

While driving down the road on my way to work one day, I was contemplating the sermon preached during the early church service in regards to gratitude and the lack of it by Christians, when a strange thing happened.

All of a sudden I noticed the sugarcane in the field around me suddenly being laid down due to the wind passing through it.  Not just a small part of the field, but the whole fifty plus acres of sugarcane.

The sugarcane then stood tall afterwards, but again the whole field was laid down by the wind again almost to the ground.   I stopped the car to marvel at this vision, when it dawned on me that I was not just witnessing the wind blowing, but I witnessing an act of praise.  I was standing there witnessing a perfect day. The temperature was perfect, the sun was perfect, and the wind was perfect. This was a day only God could have made.  Then it happened again and this time the whole field laid down in complete adoration of God. I had to get out of the car and go to my knees in respect of this act of nature thanking God for His Blessings.

  

Already weak from the experience, I got back into my car to be blinded by something a couple of miles in front of me.  As I drove closer I found it to be the sun light being reflected off of the Spanish moss hanging in the trees.  It was as if gold was hanging in the trees, bright, shining gold.

Again I had to get out of the car to witness this glory of God when I looked up to notice the Spanish moss was hanging from towering oaks trees.  They were all around me and all of them seemed to be stretching to reach the sky, OH Glory-Glory, the sight of Nature showing its gratitude to our beloved God was more than I could stand.  Overwhelmed by this display of Nature’s Glorification of God I went to my knees in prayer and asked God to forgive me for my lack of thanks, for my lack of appreciation, for my lack of gratitude.

All of a sudden I was blessed with the ability to hear the cane grow, the wind blow and the trees stretching to the sky, I was being blessed with His first fruit again, oh Glory-Glory.

I fell into a deep sleep and was awaken by the sound of someone praying beside me. I looked up and there was an old farmer kneeling next to me and as I started to rise, he put his hand on my shoulder and said only one thing, “it happened to me also”.  This farmer had experienced the same thing I had.

When ever we forget just how good we have it, look around.  We sleep in a nice soft bed, when many have none.  We sleep in a house with a roof over our heads, when many are sleeping under bridges often on hard wet concrete.

We complain about having to stand in line to receive food, when many have no legs to stand on.  We complain that our cars air-conditioners are not working properly, when many have no car at all.

When do we stop complaining about our problems and start praying for others?  When do we take part of our meals to a poor homeless family and then share the joy of our Christ Jesus with them.

When do we show our God we do appreciate everything He given us? When do we stop talking like a Christian and start acting like one?

Thank you Heavenly Father.

Brother Jim