Good Morning to you Friends,
I am very delighted to welcome you to Excerpts from NO LONGER POOR series on my blog. NO LONGER POOR is the title of my book that is scheduled to come out by the end of March this year and here 
Today i am going to be sharing with you my thoughts on gratitude as an element of a relationship character that guarantees a prosperous life.
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What does the bible say about gratitude? There was an account of ten lepers that were healed by Jesus of their leprosy. Only one of them returned to give thanks to the healer out of the ten. Jesus had to ask, where are the other Nine? The lesson here is to teach the very important essence of gratitude. After all, Jesus had done greater miracles than that and had forbidden the recipients to broadcast it. If gratitude were not something that is good for the enhancement of human interpersonal relationships, Jesus wouldn’t have probably emphasised on it.
Apostle Paul, who sets a fine example himself, for instance, ‘thanked God without ceasing’ for the positive response he gets from the people towards the message he shared with them. No wonder many fine speeches end with ‘thank you for listening’. You would wonder if that little phrase is in anyway necessary but if you ponder on it a little bit, you will see that those words are probably what draw the audience to a resounding applause.
The Bible encourages us to cultivate a spirit of gratitude. Even God considers it unjust and unrighteous to show a lack of gratitude. “God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work and labour of love you showed for his name.” I think that is a perfect example to us that we should show appreciation. It is the will of God for us to show gratitude and appreciation. ‘In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you’. If it is God’s will for us to give thanks then it’s more or less a commandment.
There is a Nigerian proverb that says when a man fails to give gratitude for a good done to him; it’s like when a thief carts away one’s goods. In essence, it means that when you fail to give thanks for a favour received, it’s like the giver has lost them to thieves. And a thief doesn’t come but to kill, to steal and to destroy. The same feeling a man gets when he is robbed by a thief is the same he gets from a man that receives his grace without recompensing with gratitude.
Be not deceived, every man wants to receive gratitude for any favour or good done to another person. In our culture here, when some does you a favour or gives you something and you replied with ‘thanks’, you often here the giver say things like ‘never mind’, or ‘oh, don’t mention’ or ‘come on, what are friends for?’. Don’t think they don’t value your gratitude because of such response and then you stop returning gratitude to them in the future. They are only saying that to avoid being seen as extracting compliments and gratitude from you. In actual sense, that is what they are mostly doing.
Gratitude helps build strong relationships
There are so many proven benefits of showing gratitude. Gratitude enhances your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, it is so important to show gratitude that everyone should make it a part of their daily life.
I will only write about one very important benefit here apart from helping to build strong relationship, remember this is only excerpts from the book.
Gratitude is more beneficial to you than the giver. There is no room for complains when your heart is filled with gratitude. As Debbie McDaniel puts it, “A heart of gratitude leaves no room for complaining. For it is impossible to be truly be thankful and filled with negativity and ungratefulness at the same time.” Yes, you may be passing through a lot right now but the truth is that it could have been worse. You should be so much grateful that you see a half filled cup rather than a half empty one. That mindset will position you to realize that you can have your thirst quenched even before you drink the content.
So go out there this week with a heart of gratitude and you will reap so much benefits in your relationships.
A big thank you for all those who have been following my blog here @Steemit and those who are following my series on Excerpts from No Longer Poor. Your comments and feedback helps me to get better. You can also read about the previous series topics here Between character and Talent, Loyalty and Expectations, all original written work by me.