“IN everything give thanks.”
Always try to look at the bright side. And when there is no bright side, polish up the dark side.
I think the best people in the world are the thankful people. They are the nicest to walk with, to talk with, to live with—to do anything with.
David, the shepherd boy, who afterwards became a King, was one of the most thankful men that ever lived. He was a busy man, but he was always playing and singing in-between-whiles. They called him “the sweet singer of Israel.” When he kept his father’s sheep, there were plenty of long dull hours of weary watching, but he used to take his lyre out with him, and play and sing to make the time pass as pleasantly as he could.
That reminds me, boys and girls, of a word of advice I want to give you—don’t grow up without learning to play on some musical instrument. Go on asking your father to buy you a flute, or a fiddle, or a banjo, or a drum. It doesn’t matter if you plague him a bit, as long as you learn to play something. If he won’t buy you anything, then whistle; whistle all the tunes you know, and all you don’t know, until you do know them. Perhaps your father will buy you a flute to stop your whistling.
David learned to play so well that he was welcome everywhere. When King Saul was “down in the dumps” and hid himself away in his tent, they sent for David to cheer him up.
We have got a great many of David’s songs still, and they are full of thankfulness to God.
Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes was walking one day through a cemetery, when he came upon a plain, upright, marble slab, with an epitaph of only four words— “She was so pleasant.” That was all. But it was enough. It meant that the one who lay sleeping there had had the music and song of thankfulness in her life. We all know a few people like that; happy people, who try to make the best of everything.
Jesus once healed ten lepers, and only one of them remembered to come back and thank Him. It was so striking that He made a remark about it: “Were there not ten healed, and only this stranger returned to give glory to God?” Only one in ten! That would be a very serious state of things if it were always like that, wouldn’t it? Do learn to say, “Thank you”; it is such a pretty word, and has so much to do with making life pleasant.
Once there was a man whose name was Homer,
Who used to live on Grumble Corner;
Grumble Corner in Cross-patch Town,
And he never was seen without a frown.
He grumbled at this, he grumbled at that,
He growled at the dog, he growled at the cat;
He grumbled at morning, he grumbled at night,
And to grumble and growl were his chief delight.
But one day, all that was changed, and when a friend met him on the street, he didn’t know him. He said, “I may be mistaken, but aren’t you Mr. Homer, that used to live at Grumble Corner?” “Yes.” “Well, what has come to you?” “I’ve changed my residence; it wasn’t healthy there; you’ll find me now in Thanksgiving Street.”
Where do you live, children? Grumble Corner or Thanksgiving Street?
The sunshine was pouring into my room when I was writing this address to you, and I think some of it got into the address. And I am sure it improved it. That reminds me of a little girl who was eating her breakfast when the sunshine was on the table, and who said, “Mother, I’ve just swallowed a spoonful of sunshine.”
Beethoven used to have his piano carried out into the sunshine, and there, in the fields, with the birds and the flowers around him, he composed some of his happiest pieces.
Take the drops of happiness as God gives them every day. A thankful heart always finds plenty to be thankful for. If someone gave me a dish of sand, and told me that there were tiny particles of iron filings mixed up with the sand, what would be the best way of finding them? To fumble with my fingers? No. But to take a magnet and push it through the sand, and it would come out with the filings sticking to it.
So with the day; let the thankful heart sweep through it, and it will find God’s mercies. Only, God’s mercies are all golden.