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Christ-centered living is not an easy task, but it is also one of the easiest ways of living, depending on how you want to look at Christian life. The Christian life is living in the moment with gratitude and grace. It’s both at the same time. With enough grace in us, we can live a life of gratitude, and it also makes us graceful!
I call the "attitude of gratitude" a necessary virtue if you call yourself a Christian. Everything we have and are is a gift. When we believe that we are blessed abundantly, we can live in gratitude.
If you are healthy, praise God.
If you are not hungry, praise god.
If you are happy, praise God.
If you have a roof over your head, praise God.
If you have a car, praise God.
If you have electricity, praise God.
If you have internet, praise God.
If you can sleep at night, praise God.
If you have coffee in the morning, praise God.
If you eat twice a day, praise God.
If you don't have bombs flying over you,
If you don't have war all around you,
If you don't have fears of losing your home
The list goes on, praise God. Praise God.
I say this partially to share with you how blessed we are and how often we don't see life's daily blessings. However simple they are, they are the seeds for a happy, blessed, and graceful Christian life. It is not complicated.
When we are grateful for the blessings of life that come to us at every moment, even though some people and situations we don’t care for, in the end, they are all managed and in the hands of God. The good and the bad are still good when God is in them. This recognition of the abundant goodness of God in all situations of life was the gift of the people of the Old Testament.
It is from this moment of gratitude Job began his graceful living. Even through the worst of his life, as you have read in the Old Testament, Job was able to praise God from the rubbles of life.
I invite you to live with gratitude so that no matter what happens in life, we will still be grateful for God's presence in those moments.
If you and I are open to seeing it, we will see that our church in Idaho is on the cusp of transformational grace. There are so many wonderful things happening in our small and big churches: feeding the hungry, caring for the needy, engaging in community activities that make a difference in people’s lives, new volunteerism, people finding our churches a place of refuge, grace, and welcome, and the list goes on. Praise God.
This makes me want to celebrate the goodness of God in and through each of you. So, I ask your to be grateful for the nominees for the presiding bishop, prayers for all of our diocesan leadership, local clergy, senior wardens, people who are waiting in hope to hear the good news of welcome.
Your brother in Christ
+Jos
The Rt. Rev. Jos Tharakan
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