By DR. DAN ERICKSON
I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to only be thankful to God about the extraordinary instead of the everyday miracle of daily life. Sometimes it is hard to see God in the everyday encounters of the divine kind. I think that is the reason scripture exhorts, “In everything gives thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thess. 5:18). It is in the midst of the ordinary of life that we find a God who loves and cares for us.
What I appreciate most about country music is how the song writers tell stories about extraordinary people living ordinary lives. Scotty McCreery, the winner of the 2011 American Idol and a Christian, sings a song called “Dirty Dishes” on his new CD. The song is about a mother who begins to give thanks over the family meal: “She prayed the strangest prayer ever said. I wanna’ thank you Lord for noisy children and slammin’ doors and clothes scattered all over the floor; a husband workin’ all the time, draggin’ in dead-tired at night; a never ending, messy kitchen and dirty dishes.”
As you listen to the song it does seem like the strangest prayer, but I believe many a woman would understand the heart of this mother. After the prayer she was asked by her concerned husband if she was all right. She responded, “There ain’t nothing wrong. Noisy kids are happy kids and slammin’ doors just means we live in a warm and loving home. Your long hours and those dishes in the sink means a job and enough to eat.”
What are you waiting for to give thanks?
There is plenty of discontentment to go around these days. Are you waiting for the economy to get better? For more money than month? Children who actually behave or a life that stops throwing curve balls? If this describes you today, try looking up. Then look inside and, finally, look around. This mother in the song could give thanks because she realized that true happiness is more about having a proper perspective. It is all about how you see life and all its twists and turns. Do you see through the eyes of God? Nothing comes into our lives that does not first come through the heart of almighty God.
When you realize this, you too can sing, “Thank you Lord for noisy children and slammin’ doors and clothes scattered all over the floor.”
