Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCCLXXXVI

We complain about the prices, yet we buy more than we need. We know it's required for our survival, yet if it doesn't meet our expectations, we throw it away.  We've become so adapted to its abundance that we take it for granted. We play with it; we make it pretty and take pictures of it to post on Facebook; we brag about how ours is better than yours. Its accessibility is obvious...all we have to do is take a look in the mirror or at our neighbors. Yes, we have become spoiled, but that doesn't mean we're unthankful; in fact our gratitude is where I want to spend some time today. I've never done any type of study on this topic, so I have no idea how many Americans do any type of praying on a regular basis. I know there are some (My mother was a good example.) who talk to God at least an hour a day. And then there are others who haven't said a prayer in years, but if you were to speculate just what type of prayers are uttered by Americans more than any other type, what type of praying would you say is the most common?  I believe it's what we refer to as "saying grace," the prayer before our meals. I don't eat a meal without offering a prayer of gratitude, even if it's a silent prayer. That's the way I was brought up. I've noticed countless scores of others doing the same thing. Now let's go back to the topic we were discussing in the first paragraph. Although I didn't specify what I was talking about, by now you've probably figured out that it was "food."  Could it be that the reason food is so abundant in our nation is the fact that it is the one blessing for which we most often say "thanks?"  Can you think of some other of life's necessities that we could use more of?  Obviously, if it's a necessity of life, we must have some of it, or we wouldn't be here, although we could sure stand a little extra.   What if we tried verbally expressing gratitude to God a little more often for what we DO have...like we do with food?   We can take a look at the story of the ten lepers and find an example of just how important it is to say "Thank you."  Of the ten who were healed, only one returned to express his gratitude, and he was "made whole," which means that although all of them were healed or cured, the one who said "Thank you" was restored to his condition of his pre-leprosy days, with no signs that he had ever had the disease. I don't mean to imply that none of us are thankful...I'm just wondering if we, as a nation, would try thanking God for our other blessings as much as we do for our food, we may find that we'll be living with more abundance than we ever dreamed. Preston