Corn Bag Gratitude

My sister-in-law makes a fantastic thing called a “corn bag.”  Sounds strange, but it’s actually quite simple.  It’s a cloth bag full of deer corn which, when placed into the microwave for a few minutes, becomes a toasty heating pad for your back, feet, head, hands…..whatever happens to be cold at that moment.  It’s fabulous, and during the winter I love to heat one or two up and place them in the bed before I hop in, so the sheets get nice and toasty.

The other morning, my sweet husband, while getting ready to go to work, came back into the bedroom with a corn bag.  He tucked it under the covers where I, for just a few more minutes, snoozed happily before starting my day.  It was a very small gesture, but it struck me as so sweet and thoughtful and for the rest of the day I thought about it.  For the rest of the day, I was thankful for that small act of kindness, and even more so for a husband who sees a need (or even a want) and goes out of his way to meet it.  It meant a lot.

As I thought about that again this morning (as my toes were freezing in the car on the way to church and I wished I had thought about heating a corn bag up for the car ride), I thought about how disproportional my gratitude seemed for that small action, compared to the relatively meager amount of appreciation for the larger things in my life.  What is it about me, I wondered, that makes me so thankful for something so small, but so ungrateful and complacent about the really important things?  Do I just take those things for granted?  I should work on that.

I – and many of us, I would wager – am really bad, for example, about looking at the things God blesses me with and thinking they are merely “nice” things.  More than that, I take a callous and unappreciative approach to the biggest and grandest thing God gave me: His Son – a living and perfect sacrifice to save me from the darkest things about myself.  I sit in church many Sundays with an apathetic attitude, not really getting what a huge thing it all is.  GOD, the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE and the SCULPTOR OF MY LIFE, saw everything horrible and dark and ugly about me and, knowing that it was the only way to bring me back to Him, suffered a painful and gruesome death on a cross.  He loved me so much and saw a need that I could not meet.  He saw that I was dying and then, in the most merciful and gracious act known to man, gave His own life that I might live.  He cherished me and my life so much that He saw fit to do so.

Y’all, that’s more than just a “nice” thing to do.

That is huge.

I cringe to think of what I would be and what my life would look like had He not done that for me, but I don’t live my life in a way that screams gratitude.  Most of the time, I go through my days with an attitude that shouts self-righteousness.  Most of the time, I sit in worship on Sunday mornings unmoved by the cross and what it should mean for my life.  Most of the time, I am cold to the reality that I would be nothing if God had not done what He did for me.

If I am grateful, I should act like it.  If a small act of kindness by my husband stays on my mind all day and makes me love him just a little bit more, how much more should Jesus’ radical act of love consume my existence?

Jesus’ death is more than just a “nice thing.”  It changed the world and, when we let it, it changes lives.

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. (John 3:16-18 MSG)

If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NCV)