May 26, 2025 Devo

My youngest son and his wife are working hard with our 4-year-old grandson Adrian to teach him to say “please” and “thank you.” Those simple words are actually magical words that make the people you say them to feel valued and appreciated. The hope is that if he can learn them at a young age, they will become a natural way of speaking for him. The habit of expressing gratitude is not easy to develop. The genuine sense of gratitude is even harder.
You know what else is hard for people? Keeping promises. Just think about how many people you know who made commitments to you and didn’t follow through. A commitment to pay you back the money that was borrowed by a certain date. A commitment to pick you up at a certain time. A commitment to follow through on a task they said they would do. A commitment to be there for you when you need them. I think people mean well, but what we often discover is that it’s a special person whose word is truly their bond. Most of the time, it’s a very loose tether.
Gratitude and commitment. Isn’t that what all of us really want in our relationships with others? Of course it is. And it’s exactly what God wants from us in our relationship with Him. Take another look at our verse for today. “Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High.” God makes it clear in this psalm that He's not interested in sacrifices and promises. He’s looking for something deeper. Something more mature. Like our four-year-old grandson, God gave the people things they could do and things they could say to express their love and appreciation. But His desire was that they would do more than just go through the motions. He wanted their HEARTS, not just their religious habits.
As Adrian grows up, hopefully, his polite manners will become habits of the heart. Our prayer is that his words of “please” and “thank you” will flow from a heart of thankfulness and appreciation. Our prayer is that he will become a man of his word, a man who will live up to the commitments he makes. And that’s God’s hope for us. Not that we will be perfect people, but that we will “grow up” in our faith. People whose rituals flow out of habits of the heart. People of gratitude and commitment. That’s God’s Word for you today.