An Anglican Compendium of Thoughts and Prayers: Don't Take Me For Granted!

The financial state of our western society provides strong indicators as to what family life may be for many–fraught with stress and worry. Meteoric rises in mortgage repayments, grocery costs are sky rocketing, and most worrying of all, utility costs that are forcing many of our elderly to have to choose between eating and being warm.

During difficult times relationships can easily become strained and communications between couples start to fracture.

One of the most common complaints between husbands and wives is that they take each other for granted. And how predictable that is! Two people live in the same house, share the same life, and follow the same daily routines, doing what needs to be done, keeping things afloat.

It takes conscious effort not to settle into seeing one another's goodness and caring as no more than one's right and no great gift. What an illusion that is and what an extraordinary presumption.

If we do that to one another, what surprise is there that we regularly do the same to God. We take for granted His wonderful gifts, and we so easily call them our own. And some of us persist in that illusion until the very moment when we're called to give them back. What a stark and dreadful awakening that can be.

Thankfulness for life and for all of God's gifts is the starting point for anyone who seeks to be truly wise. But it's certainly no burden. To see the truth of how undeservedly beloved we are is to find some sense of how valuable and important we tiny, mortal creatures are to the creator of this grand universe.

'Tell it to your children,' says the Old Testament reading. And so we must.

But tell it to yourself first, over and over again:

Loving God, it is You who made me and You who loves me with everlasting love. I know You will never let me go. Amen

Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. Joel 1:3