Especially deodorant!

Early in my career I had established my first company. I started with nothing and could never seem to accumulate enough cash, but otherwise the company was growing like a weed and we were becoming successful. My employees had worked very hard and in spite of being “cash-poor” the company was doing very well due to everyone’s contributions. I decided that I would reward every employee with a cash bonus, (I had 68 at the time). I had to borrow the money; so I went down to the bank and got $6800 in $100 bills on my credit line. I distributed a $100 bill to each employee along with a little hand-written note telling them that I appreciated their contribution towards making our company a great company.

A couple of days went by and a supervisor came in my office and told me that she had overhead two warehouse employees discussing the cash bonus. One of them said, “If that cheap S.O.B. had wanted to, he could have given us all $1000 instead of a lousy $100 bill”, and the other readily agreed. What they got next was a one-on-one meeting with me in which they received some “counsel” and yes I fired both of them. (In those, my early fire-breathing days, they were lucky they both did not receive broken noses too.)

I was in church last Sunday and a young man who had been heavily involved with the church in every facet was relocating to Hawaii and the church was honoring him and seeing him off. He was giving his testimony and started rattling off all of the things for which he was thankful. He mentioned God changing his life and delivering him from a serious drinking problem. He went on to say he was thankful for his Godly loving wife and then on to his four kids. He mentioned our pastor and his wife and the choir and the musicians and the people in the congregation. He mentioned his and his family’s health; he was thankful for the air that he breathed and being able to see and hear and walk and talk. This went on for ten minutes. He even mentioned being thankful for his house trailer in which he lived and the carpenter tools that he used to make a living. He also mentioned he was thankful for his toothbrush and deodorant for which he mentioned we should also be thankful.


I can understand how it must make God feel when we are not grateful for what we have and instead always want more. It seems some of us are never thankful for anything such as the two warehouse employees that got mad because I gave them $100. We should concentrate more on what we “do” have instead of what we “do not” have. It is the will of God in Christ Jesus that we be thankful not resentful.

Count your blessings and name them one by one. If you will give it some thought, you like me will be amazed at what God has done and continues to do for us every day including your next breath and heartbeat Think about it…

1 Thess. 516
Rejoice always,
pray without ceasing,
in everything give thanks , for this
is the will of God in Christ Jesus for
you.