31 days of Words for the Daily Dash-Day 9

This next phrase pushed its way to the front of the 31 Days' line because of the verses that so impressed me this morning. I was so impressed, I tweeted about them.

ShelleyVHarris Shelley Harris 

3x in Col 3:15-17 thankfulness is stressed. "be thankful." "with thankfulness in your hearts." "giving thanks to God." //This is not small.

Those verses and my sentence may seem like a unlikely pairing, but here goes.

It's all about the pioneers.

This sentence is one that really, Lou says to me more than I say to anybody else. My related sentence that prompts the above statement usually starts, "You know, back in the pioneer days..." and I finish it with some hard way they had to do something compared to the easy way we have to do, well, pretty much anything we have to do. We discuss that for a while, and then our conversation ends by talking about how thankful we are that we weren't born a pioneer.


I admire the pioneers greatly and hope that I possess some of their grit. Maybe I'm looking back at them through rose colored glasses, but I don't think they were quite the complainers that we are. Things were hard for them. They expected that. Things are pretty nice for us. We expect that. We whine when they're not. Now, I'm not saying that we don't seek to change a changeable, uncomfortable situation. But I am saying that an expectation of instant gratification, and the instant complaining that happens if the instant gratification is not met, has a seed of ingratitude in it.

Remembering the pioneers is a gratitude check for me. And gratitude or thankfulness - like I said in my tweet - is not small.

Colossians 3:15-17

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷Andwhatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.