UNGRATEFUL MUCH

   Are you grateful? I’m sure you’d tell me ‘yes I am. I wake up every morning and I thank my maker.’ Do you know sometimes our supposed prayers of thanksgiving can be born out of routine? We say the words but don’t really mean them. It’s like an automated response; we know we have to say it, so we do. Then most of us make a habit of not saying or really meaning that thank you unless something we’ve always wanted has been granted to us. Then you hear
people shout; ‘na God o!’ ‘God is good.’ ‘Allah is great.’ And so on. You can’t tell me it’s not the common practise but it is.
   One day, a friend invited me for a programme in her church. It was time to pray and everyone was on their feet and the prayers began in earnest. I couldn’t pray. Maybe because I am a catholic and I’m used to prayers being private intentions or it’s just my curiosity that opened my ears to the prayers around me and broke my concentration. Everyone was asking for something, no one was saying thank you for something. Then, the pastor asked everyone to thank God. I listened again and this is what I heard. ‘I thank you because I know you’ve done it for me.’ ‘I thank you for all the great things you’ve been doing and I know you will do more.’ ‘I thank you for answering my prayers.’ No one was saying thank you for specific deeds, instead the ‘thank you’ were for things asked. They were said in advance, I guess for the requests to happen. I am not trying to judge because I am guilty of same sometimes.
   Saying ‘thank you.’ Is good but why forget the deeds that have been done already? We don’t remember those deeds because we count them as little and not the grand thing we are asking for. We save up the ‘thank you’ until we achieve that dream, that promotion, that job, that baby, that house, that award, that money we want.
   Wise men say ‘little things count.’ ‘Little drops of water make a mighty ocean.’  Simply put, being grateful for those things we count as little will open the door to more little things and it will grow bigger and greater things will arrive. Big things aren’t built in a day.
   Few months ago, I was pissed at where I was. I wanted more than I had. I just wasn’t satisfied. I was climbing a pedestrian bridge when I heard a lady sobbing, so I turned around, then the accident occurred. It was like a movie on slow motion. A man was hit by a car, he went up into the air, I could see the shock on his face and he hit the floor. The sound of a crack when he did so washed over me. He died instantly. I pinched myself and I was alive. I realised I should be grateful for that. I have two legs, eyes, my body parts are complete. I can move. I am healthy. You can say it’s a classic case of now I see my lot is better.
   Then I saw the truth, that like you and everyone else my thought is always on the things I want and don’t have and not on the things I do have. We worry a lot about the things we do not have, we think others have it and we wonder why God didn’t give it to us. Yes, the bible says ‘ ask and you shall receive....’ maybe that’s why we only say ‘thank you’ when we get that thing we want and forget about the things we never bothered to ask for but we just have them. We begin to take those little additions for granted, like we do with our friends and family. They are always there.
   One thing I have come to realise is, cultivating a habit of gratefulness is awesome. When you thank the universe for the little things she brings more things our way. She wants to do more for you to be grateful. That’s just it. It’s not your dressing up to go to church that shows you are grateful. It is your inner conversation that no man can hear. Forget the things that you want for yourself and be grateful for what you have before you lose it. There is nothing wrong with wanting a million dollars in your account. Now, you have just five hundred dollars in your bank account, be grateful for it. At least you have something. I call it ‘the naira in the tin can method.’ Not savvy ehn? Look at it this way, everyday you put a naira in the can, one day you open it up and it’s no more a naira but thousands of naira. You say thank you for little things, it adds up to you saying thank you for something big. You wonder why lots of people have HBP, heart attack and die suddenly? We worry a lot. You might not be where you want in your life right now but be grateful for what you have. God knows where he wants you to be and He is not sleeping on it, so thank Him.
   Say thank you for the little and He will do more and want to do more. We do take his deeds for granted especially if it’s not that big thing we want. Remember the lepers in the bible? Well, it is human nature to be blinded by what we want and not see what we have. The funny thing you don’t know is, that little thing you have is going to lead you to that big thing you want.
   Do cultivate ‘a naira in the tin can’ approach today. I am no pastor but I coined a little prayer because I’m not the most patient of people and sometimes I forget. I hope it helps you too.

‘I thank you Lord for your blessings in my life
I am sorry it took me so long to realize them
No matter how little they look, they are from you
They are the little drops that will make my ocean mighty
For these continual drops, I say thank you.’
                                     -Frances Okeke