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<\/p>\nDeep within the human heart is a desire for a Gallant Gratitude. \u00a0\u00a0A gratitude that is so strong, it can stand up to and face the problems in life. \u00a0\u00a0A gratitude that transcends circumstances.\u00a0 A gratefulness that can celebrate the good… and sustain us through the bad.<\/p>\n
We are annoyed by lack of gratitude in ourselves and our kids characterized by complaining, being irritable, ruining the festivities, and being down in the dumps and depressed. \u00a0These folks miss out on joy because they point out the painful reality of problems.<\/p>\n
You know anyone like this…an employee who is never satisfied…a client who never says thanks.\u00a0 We once had a friend from school come visit us.\u00a0 She was a constant ungrateful Eeyore. \u00a0She stayed with us for 2 days, but it felt like 2 weeks…constant complaining, constant ungratefulness. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps you have a mother\/father in a nursing home, and no matter how much you do to help while balancing your life\/family demands,\u00a0 the first thing you hear when you visit is, \u201cIt\u2019s been a while….\u201d \u00a0You think, why can\u2019t they have a gallant gratitude that stands up to life\u2019s circumstances?<\/p>\n
Jerry has gallant gratitude. I read a true story about Jerry. He is the restaurant manager. He is always grateful. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would always reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!” Many of the waiters at his restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs; they would follow him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. Jerry shared his secret, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be Grateful or I can choose to be Critical. Several years later, Jerry was robbed. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to the hospital. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. About six months after the accident, when a friend asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Want to see my scars?”\u00a0 “Weren’t you scared?” the friend asked. Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the Emergency Room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘He’s a dead man.’\u00a0 so I knew I needed to take action.”\u00a0 “What did you do?” his friend asked.\u00a0 “Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry.\u00a0 She asked if I was allergic to anything. I said,\u00a0 ‘Yes,’ …the doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”<\/p>\n
I want what Jerry has for Christmas. \u00a0\ud83d\ude42\u00a0 However, we want a gallant gratitude that isn\u2019t some naive Pollyanna approach to life either. Few want to be overly optimistic, syrupy \u201cisn\u2019t everything great this year?”\u00a0 You know those people who seem disconnected to reality. \u00a0Pollyanna’s are nice, but seem to be naive, sometimes in denial, and often disappointed when everyone won\u2019t or can\u2019t get along.<\/p>\n
Gallant gratitude contrasts two toys:\u00a0 Chatty Cathy and G.I. Joe.<\/p>\n
Chatty Cathy \u201cLet\u2019s Pretend Things Are Good.\u201d
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Do you remember Charming Chatty Cathy? \u00a0You could put little records in here and she\u2019d give you pithy phrases about life… \u201cplaying with you is super fun.\u201d \u201cI Love you,\u201d or \u201cMay I have a cookie?\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Or Talking PJ, Barbie\u2019s friend, \u00a0doll that had a pull string and would say, \u201cYou\u2019re the grooviest.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0You watch these old commercials and they remind you of both a more innocent, but also more naive approach to life. \u00a0There are lots of toys that say, \u201cLet\u2019s pretend things are good.\u201d The Teddy Ruxfind, dolls, cuddly bears, etc.<\/p>\n
Many of us feel like Christmas, the Bible, and Christians with their \u201chappy happy songs\u201d are naive Chatty Cathy\u2019s. Many think that the Bible teaches, \u201cLet\u2019s pretend things are good…\u201d<\/p>\n
I had a friend who was skeptical about Christ followers. He\u2019d come to church seeing them raise their hands and clap with all the evil in the world. He called them \u201chappy clappys.\u201d\u00a0 Chatty Cathy-type thinking is not heroic, nor is Pollyanna thinking. \u00a0Why? \u00a0They cannot define reality. They never admit there is a serious problem. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s hard to be grateful for a mindset that says, \u201cLet\u2019s pretend things are good…\u201d<\/p>\n
In Bertrand Russel\u2019s book \u201cWhy I Am Not A Christian…\u201d he writes about the darkness of the human condition. \u00a0He tells us to think about how bad the problem of suffering and pain really is.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t let Christians or Pollyannas squirm out of the problem of pain. He says, \u201cThis universe has great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying; If you looked at the matter from a scientific point of view, you would say, \u201cthere is injustice here, and the odds are that there is injustice everywhere.”\u00a0 Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, “The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance.” You would say, “Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment,” and that is really what a scientific person would argue about the universe. He would say, “Here we find in this world a great deal of injustice, and so we must know the whole world is unjust.\u00a0 Bertrand looks at the world and sees pain, and he sees Christianity offering naive Chatty Cathy bumper stickers and blind feelings and Christmas Carols about \u201chope and joy.”\u00a0 He thought the Bible was teaching, \u201cLet\u2019s Pretend Things Are Good.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Bertrand was saying, \u201cWe must know that the truth is that we will all die with the great death of the universe. \u00a0That\u2019s the way it is. \u00a0\u00a0What can you do about it? \u00a0Some options: kill yourself or enjoy yourself. If this life is all there is, then eat, drink, and be merry and love whoever you want.\u00a0 But as you are doing this, try to forget that it\u2019s all temporary, it\u2019s all an illusion. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The universe is a cruel irrational place.<\/p>\n
Bertrand Russel is begging for a hero who can define the problem of life… and it seems clear to him that Chatty Cathy Christians aren\u2019t up to the task. \u00a0We, and Bertrand, are turned off by unhelpful well-meaning Chatty Cathys, but we are grateful for leaders and heroes who diagnose the problem before offering the solution. \u00a0When a manager comes in and says, \u201cThings are broken. This person has to go. This system is off base,\u00a0 etc.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0The employees say, \u201cThank you. Someone can define reality. \u00a0Someone recognizes the problem.”<\/p>\n
Christmas:\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s Realize Things Are Bad.\u201d\u00a0 Christmas teaches us that we have a Hero who can Define the Problem. A prophet from the Old Testament comes on the seen and defines the reality of our world in a famous \u201cChristmas passage.\u201d\u00a0 He tells us that this world is broken and dark.<\/p>\n
1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, \u00a02 The people who walked in darkness \u00a0Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, \u00a0Upon them a light has shined.<\/em><\/p>\n Do you see what Isaiah is saying?\u00a0 Our Hero comes to define the problem. \u00a0This life is full of gloom. \u00a0\u00a0This life is filled with darkness. \u00a0This life will leave you walking through a land of the shadow of death.\u00a0 Christmas teaches us that we will in a danger zone of darkness.<\/p>\n If you think Christianity is naive, and Pollyanna-like in its \u201cLet\u2019s join hands with old women\u201d and sing about God and pretend there are no real problems, suffering, or evil in the world… I have some shocking news for you. \u00a0\u00a0The Bible and the message of Christmas is incredibly realistic and shockingly honest about the darkness and pain of this world. \u00a0\u00a0The Bible teaches that this world is so filled with darkness that when God came to be born, He was shut out. He was thrown out in the manure. He was shunned by his home town, hunted by a madman who was killing off all the children under two years old.\u00a0 What!? \u00a0This is the Christmas story boys and girls. \u00a0\u00a0Yes, a wonderful little children\u2019s tale about infanticide, murder, malicious death, darkness, betrayal, and a malicious diabolical madman…Merry Christmas. \u00a0\ud83d\ude42 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Notice in Isaiah how realistic the Bible is about the darkness of life. In contrast to Bertrand Russell\u2019s perception, Christianity offers a HERO THAT DEFINES THE PROBLEM.<\/p>\n As many of us approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, we don\u2019t feel happy, happy, happy… We are discouraged. Our families are broken. Our jobs are in jeopardy. Our dreams have been dashed. This is the first Christmas since mom or dad died, or I lost my child, or my husband or fianc\u00e9 broke up with me…or a reminder that I am still single…or still can\u2019t have kids…or still find myself unhappily married, etc.<\/p>\n Psychologists and Sociologists tells us that Christmas<\/a> time is the most likely time of the year to experience depression. The suicide rate is higher during December than any other month, which tells us that Christmas depression should be taken quite seriously. Depression at Christmas time can be triggered by a multitude of things, such as losses, failures, and loneliness. These elements are exacerbated this time of year. People who have had deaths in the family<\/a> or have experienced divorce<\/a> or the loss of a child are more prone to depression, especially during the holiday season.<\/p>\n If you feel gloomy… \u00a0If you feel despair… \u00a0The message of Christmas tells you, \u201cYou are not crazy. \u00a0You are not out of your mind. There is something seriously wrong with the world. \u00a0There are evil doers living all around us. \u00a0Stealing, betraying, undermining. \u00a0\u00a0If you have a sense that something is not right in the world (cancer, murder, injustice, etc.), the Bible says that you are stumbling upon the truth. We need a hero. We need a Savior. We need a gallant knight to come in and save the day because we can\u2019t save ourselves.<\/p>\n Have you ever had someone come into your work environment and say out loud what everyone was thinking. Like, \u201cWe don\u2019t communicate around here. There is a lot of political maneuvering and organizational chaos. \u00a0We must fix this before we can move forward!\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Something in you says, \u201cThanks for saying that.\u00a0 It\u2019s about time someone articulated the problem.”\u00a0 You are thankful that the truth was spoken. \u00a0\u00a0You say, \u201cThis person is a bold leader.\u201d Now that we admit there are problems, we can actually get somewhere. \u00a0There is now a possibility for change.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You realize that this message is rooted in reality not some Chatty Cathy nonsense.<\/p>\n Do you deal with life like Chatty Cathy? \u00a0\u00a0Many Christians I know try to deal with the darkness of life in a very unBiblical way.<\/p>\n 1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, \u00a02 The people who walked in darkness \u00a0Have seen a great light;<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThis world is broken, but NEVERTHELESS… I am grateful I know the one who will fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy health is fading, but NEVERTHELESS… I am grateful I know the one who will give me a new body…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy job is uncertain, but NEVERTHELESS… I am grateful I know the The God of the universe came to choose me, adopt me, and my relationship with Him is certain, unchangeable, and secure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI may have darkness, and it\u2019s bad… But I am grateful that I know it is not permanent. It is not irreparable…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI may have the darkness of falling short of God\u2019s standards… But God offers to make me right with him as a Gift from Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n What does Gallant Gratitude look like?\u00a0 In the TV show, BIG BANG THEORY, Sheldon looks at gift giving through the lens of good works. \u00a0You buy me a gift… And I give you a gift of equal value. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But one Christmas he is overwhelmed with a gift that he never could\u2019ve imagined.<\/p>\n\n