The Crooked made Straight

The Crooked made Straight

What if there were a medicine that would straighten out all that is crooked? The toothpicks fall out of the box on the floor, and there they lay in all directions. What would it take to make them straight? I think of the crookedness as disarray; as things not being the way they are supposed to be. And sadly, there is much that is not the way it is supposed to be.

What if gratefulness straightened out all that was crooked? Suppose you are near-sighted, or far-sighted - it does not matter which - something is wrong, and there are things you can’t see clearly, whether near words or distant birds. What if, through the regular practice of gratefulness, your vision could improve?

It actually does, you know. Oh, I don’t think for a minute that gratefulness improves your physical vision, but what about your spiritual vision, your ability to see the goodness of God in every corner, and what is important over against the trivial, and the value of persons made in the image of God and loved by Him. That is pretty good vision, and many of us find ourselves shortsighted.

What if the regular practice of thankfulness could rid ourselves of aberrant cells in our body that threaten to reproduce and create a cancer that seek to destroy us? Again, God can cure cancer, but your thankfulness cannot. But your thankfulness can cure cancers of the soul, such as bitterness, or apathy, or selfishness, or resentment. And while I do know that there will be no cellular cancer in heaven, I believe that we should not be content to live with spiritual cancer in the meantime. And a regular practice of thankfulness may be the medicine that we need.

You may regard yourself as a thankful person. I hope that it is true. Do others hear you complain? That would be a red flag, wouldn't it? Do you find in yourself patches of soul-ish illnesses mentioned above: bitterness, apathy, selfishness, resentment. I mention them because I find them in myself. Do you find them in yourself? They are dead patches in the green lawn of gratefulness, and the dead patches are generally more noticeable than are the green areas.

Do you brush your teeth? Of course you do. I’ll leave flossing aside, since it seems to be a different matter, but we all brush our teeth, probably twice a day. Do you spend some time in thankfulness twice a day? Perhaps that is more like flossing, something you do once in a while. But do we really think that soul decay is less a problem than tooth decay? Yes, a bad tooth really hurts. But a bad soul carries a pain that is worse, though different. Soul pain may actually affect more those around you than yourself; soul pain is keenly felt by the Father, the Giver of such good gifts, while we may be oblivious.

Come, ye thankful people come, be thankful, and be healed.