“Barzillai the Gileadite also came down from Rogelim to cross the Jordan with the king and to send him on his way from there. Now Barzillai was a very old man, eighty years of age. He had provided for the king during his stay in Mahanaim, for he was a very wealthy man. The king said to Barzillai, “Cross over with me and stay with me in Jerusalem, and I will provide for you.” But Barzillai answered the king, “How many more years will I live, that I should go up to Jerusalem with the king? I am now eighty years old. Can I tell the difference between what is good and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats and drinks? Can I still hear the voices of men and women singers? Why should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? Your servant will cross over the Jordan with the king for a short distance, but why should the king reward me in this way? Let your servant return, that I may die in my own town near the tomb of my father and mother. But here is your servant Kimham. Let him cross over with my lord the king. Do for him whatever pleases you.” The king said, “Kimham shall cross over with me, and I will do for him whatever pleases you. And anything you desire from me I will do for you.”” (2Sam 19:31-38NIV)
From the story told by Luke in his gospel about the healing of certain ten lepers by the Lord Jesus, it is clear that God wants us to always be grateful for everything He does for us. He doesn’t want us to cultivate a culture of overlooking His acts of kindness and mercy to us day after day. Otherwise, we will be blocking the flow of His goodness into our lives in ways beyond our understanding. (Cf. Luke 17:11-19)
Think about it yourself. Even as human beings, we too want people to express their gratitude when we do them good. We don’t want them acting as though our labour or sacrifice of love or mercy over them means nothing. And when we are dealing with anyone who will not take our goodness or kindness to them seriously, we begin to think of how to block the flow of our acts of goodness to them. So, we cherish gratitude, and rightly so.
However, even though it is highly important that people express their gratitude to us when we do them good, we should be careful not to become an unnecessarily burden to them because of anything we have done for them. And we will become an unnecessary burden to them, if we do not understand that we cannot help anyone or do anyone any form of good, if God has not enabled us to do so. So, whatever measure of good we do for anybody is not something we can take credit for. The one that should take all the credit for it is God. Otherwise, we will be paralysing ourselves and making ourselves incapable of abounding in good works. (Cf. 2Kings 6:27; Isaiah 26:12; 2Cor 3:5-6)
See, when we understand that God is the reason we are able to bless others, we will look to Him only for our reward and not be bitter, if men fail to show us gratitude for whatever we have done for them. There may indeed be times when men forget to show us gratitude for the good we have done for them, as we see in the case of Pharaoh’s official that forgot to help Joseph for two full years. And there may be times that people just deliberately take lightly what we have done for them. Nonetheless, whether people show us gratitude for our goodness to them or not, as long as we have done what we have done for them with a right heart, God will reward us fully for it at the appropriate time. (Cf. Gen 40-41; Gal 6:7-10)
Now if we are functioning with this understanding, we will also know when it is totally unnecessary for us to accept some show of gratitude from certain people God has used us to bless. What I mean is that there are times we can become an unnecessary burden of gratitude to others, all because we want them to be grateful to us. And that is what we will be, if we are greedy and don’t know how to say ‘No’ to what we don’t need or what we don’t have the ability to manage or enjoy.
As we see in our opening bible text, even though Barzillai was tremendously helpful to King David during the rebellion of Absalom, he would not accept his gesture of gratitude to him after the rebellion had been squashed. Why? It was because he knew that he did not need what the king was offering him, seeing that he was a very wealthy man himself and had also become too old to appreciate merriment. He would just become an unnecessary burden to him by taking it. So, he persuaded him to let someone else become the beneficiary of whatever good he wanted to do for him. And so it was.
In like manner, we too should not allow greed to make us accept from others any material expression of gratitude that we don’t need or that we can do without. Instead, at such times, we should consider their words of gratitude and prayer sufficient for us. That way, others that truly need what they want to do for us or give to us can become beneficiaries of it. Then God who sees our hearts will reward us abundantly for our thoughtfulness and also make His face shine upon us.
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