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Key Bible Verse: I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation … (Philippians 4:12b). Bonus Reading: 1 Timothy 6:6-8

Many years ago, I went to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. "Daddy" King said his mother, Delia, had told him to always thank God for what she called the "leavings." If you've got enough breath left to complain, you have something left.

Some years later I went back to Atlanta to Ebenezer Church, and by this time Dr. King had lost A. D. and Martin Luther, his two sons, and his beloved wife had been shot to death right before his eyes at the organ in that very sanctuary. Guess what the old man was saying? "Thank God for what's left." He was still saying that life always has enough left to make it worth living. One person says the glass is half empty, but another sees it as half full and praises God. Those who complain to God about what they don't have are forgetting that their very breath is a gift from God. After tragedy there is always something—life, air or, as a soul prayer says, "a reasonable portion of health and strength" left to praise God for. Our provident God always leaves something on which to keep going.

—Henry H. Mitchell in Soul Theology

• What are the underlying character traits of a thankful person? Are these evident in your life?

Thought to Apply: It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life.

—ELISABETH ELIOT (MISSIONARY AND WRITER)

Credits: Adapted from— Thursday: and Nickolas C. Lewter, Soul Theology (Harper & Row, 1986)

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