Thank God

In her book, Love Through Me, Natalie Ryan tells of working for a small non-profit and receiving a call from a man named Dennis seeking a $100 donation for his work with orphans in Africa.  She felt the man was sincere and verbally promised she would have her organization fund his request.  You’re probably thinking like I am: “Right, man from Africa wants money.  It’s got to be a scam.”  Natalie’s boss was probably thinking that, because try as she might – and she worked to get independent verification that Dennis’s work was legitimate – she could not convince her boss to send the $100.

In trying to figure out who was going to help this poor man, she heard God say, “You.”  She quit her job and decided to answer God’s call, forming her own missionary charity, “Hearts in Action.”   In a throw-away line that struck me hard, she wrote that her first order of business was “raising the $100” that she had promised to Dennis, the man from Africa.

What struck me was the realization that I could never remember a time in my adult life when it was necessary for me to “raise $100.”  If I needed $100 cash and it wasn’t already in my pocket, it was certainly as close as the nearest ATM.  My second thought is that I had never directly thanked God for this particular blessing in my life.  Perhaps I just attributed it to my hard work, or my prudent financial management, or just good luck, but apparently I had never attributed it to God.

And not realizing that this was simply a small manifestation of God’s infinite, unconditional and eternal love for me, I was never felt particularly happy or satisfied with this blessing.  Of course, I could always find $100 if I needed it, but what if I needed $1000 or $10000?  Not so easy.  I’d just have to work a little harder, save a little more.  But even if I got that, I would always see that there was something more, something better, or something newer that would be the icing on my cake.

I constantly sought out the new and improved, but once I got it, it quickly became the old and the ordinary.  I thought that more was always better – more possessions, more pleasure, more power, more beauty, more friends, etc. – yet always found that more may be better for a while, but more is never enough. 

Mary Jo Leddy, in her book, Radical Gratitude, refers to this state as perpetual dissatisfaction.  It is ugly, but it is the lifeblood of our money-based economy.  Without our constant yearning for the newer car, the bigger house, the latest fashions; without our obsession for the new and improved; without our mantra of “more is always better,” we spend less, the economy falters, jobs are lost, and our material wealth and our self-worth shrinks.  We no longer live for God, but only for ourselves.

Jesus praises the grateful leper (Lk 17:11-19) for he has broken this cycle of dissatisfaction.  The man has recognized the source of his life, the source of all that he is, the source of all that he has, and it is enough.  His sight is no longer focused on what he lacks, but on what he has already been given, the unconditional, infinite, eternal love of God.   

When we come together to celebrate the Eucharist – the root word for Eucharist is the same word that Luke uses to describe the man’s thanks and praise to God – we recognize that God has given us our very lives as a gift, that God loves us with a love that knows no bounds, that He gave us his only Son to die for us that we might have eternal life with Him.  Our gratitude does not change God, it changes us.  When we live with this radical, at-our-very-core gratitude, we, like the leper, appreciate and honor what we have, not obsess over and crave for what we are missing.  We can see ourselves for who we are – loved children of God – rather that constantly trying to be who other people want us to be. 

Most importantly, we recognize that we cannot wait to be happy to be grateful – we must be grateful to be happy.

Thank God.