Taking Time to Say Thanks
There's hardly anything more fulfilling than being thankful in life. One of the greatest (and sometimes least practiced) joys of my life is saying thank you to people who have helped me in some way or who have been an encouragement or blessing in my life. Recently I wrote 16 thank you cards to volunteers who helped with the Rock the River outreach I'm working on for the BGEA. I think it's a huge thing for people to know that you appreciate them and their help.
I was surprised to hear stories on one of our past preaching trips that politicians write thank you's a lot. Actually many famous people, politicians included have a lot of people to thank for getting to where they are today. And many of them became a success in part because they let people know how thankful they were.
Some of the greatest practices in life related to thankfulness are:
1. Writing thank you cards and putting them in the mail.
2. Encouraging other people and letting them know we appreciate them verbally.
3. Giving people a small gift or gift card as a token of appreciation when they help us out in a significant way.
I would venture to say that many people miss out on this great experience of being thankful. In the Scripture Jesus heals 10 lepers and only 1 of them returns to say thank you (Luke 17:11-19). I want to always be the one who turns back to show my appreciation to God and to others for helping me in my life.