A Hit List

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blogging, faith, gratitude, insanitybytes, opinion, thugs

We had a good sermon Sunday. I love it when it’s Tuesday and you’re still chewing on it. That’s a 12 course meal. If I tried to summarize it all, I’d have to write an entire book, but one small part was very validating, affirming something I already know, but have to remind myself of constantly. It was about gratitude, cultivating  an attitude of gratitude. That really is a key to happiness, a way of creating a joyful disposition, a formula for tapping into the Lord’s abundance.

Gratitude puts our eyes on all the things we have, all the blessings, rather than focusing on all the things we lack, all the things that are wrong with the world. Gratitude creates abundance, ingratitude creates scarcity. The Kingdom is abundant, receive it all.

This time it was about people, being grateful for people, which is very simple on the surface, thank you Lord for friends and family, for the nice people at work, for good pastors. Those are people I call the front pagers. It’s really important to receive them, to pray for them, to express our gratitude for them being in our life in a conscious way.

However, it’s the second pagers that always give us trouble. I call that my hit list. All in good humor here, but we’re Italian, what can I say. For fifty bucks and a cartoon of cigarettes, I think we could probably have that guy’s fingers broken. Yeah, there’s some big stuff that afflicts the second pagers! There’s some really rotten people in the world.

Least anyone falsely believe I am filled with perpetual grace and levitating three feet off the ground, it just isn’t so. I get angry, frustrated, I lament the injustice, I have a hit list. Ha! Just for the record, everybody on that list is guilty, too. There are no innocents  on the second page. I don’t take offense at small things, I don’t waste energy on trifles. I’m packed to the gills with mercy. If you’re a second pager, you must be an appalling specimen indeed.

Those are the people on the second page, on the hit list, the people you hope you don’t have time to try to pray for, to be grateful for. Those are the people who are hard to love. It can take some strong faith, some intense surrender, some major forgiveness to try to receive even them with some gratitude. You can be honest with God, too. He already knows how you feel. I have a couple of people who are still like, yep, thank you Lord for providing me with a walking, breathing example of why mankind actually needs Salvation. Or perhaps, thank you for showing me exactly how NOT to walk in faith.

Everybody serves a purpose in the kingdom. Everybody has something to teach you. Ha! Some people teach you to be grateful you don’t suffer from their level of spiritual confusion.

There is a payoff, a reward, a real benefit in the here and now to storing up treasures in heaven. Forgiveness sets us free, intercession puts the authority back in our hands, and those who can forgive much are going to love much. To practice being grateful for those in your life who aren’t so charming, transforms them in our own perception from an affliction, a curse, into a blessing and a gift. Since the second pagers are going to walk among us anyway, it’s far more logical to receive them as a gift with something to teach us, rather than a blight on our potato.

Accusations of virtue signaling are a big thing these days. A lot of people in our culture are busy trying to prove how good they are, how they care about all the right things, how super spiritual they are, all loving on their enemies and everything. In my case not at all, there are actually some genuine payoffs, rewards, benefits from following the Lord and applying some biblical principles to your life. There is wisdom to be found there that can open you up to life and life abundant.

Also, in all good humor here, but seriously, for fifty bucks and a cartoon of cigarettes, I think we could probably just have your fingers broken.