Whatever psychologists have advocated, or etiquette experts advised, thanksgiving has always been the holy response of God’s people. Not just for one day per year, but our whole lives long, God desires that His children be filled with gratitude: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col 3:17).  

There is no doubt that gratitude has become a popular topic in recent years.
A quick foray into social media reveals that #thankful continues to be the subject of many pretty memes. A discerning shopper can fill her home with daily reminders of the need for gratitude, from the ‘Give Thanks’ exhortation on her coffee mug to the ‘Grateful’ artwork on the living room wall.
Thankfulness has been the subject of many best-selling self-help books in the last couple of decades. There has also been a profusion of scientific research into the psychology of gratitude. Numerous experts have touted the importance of thankfulness for leading a happy and healthy life.
For instance, studies have demonstrated that people who regularly express thankfulness enjoy its results through an alleviation of stress: “When you are grateful, all the signposts of stress, like anger, anxiety and worry, diminish.”i  Similarly, making a commitment to gratitude is said to enrich interpersonal love, encourage mental and physical well-being, improve patterns of sleep, and even increase your life expectancy.
In order to promote thankfulness, psychologists recommend mindfulness practices like the Daily Gratitude Inventory. Individuals may cultivate a more grateful spirit by pausing in the midst of the daily busyness, reviewing their various gifts, relishing the value and worth of these gifts, and then responding with appreciation.
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Written by David Richardson and Ray M. Sanchez |
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Parents, students, faculty, and staff long silent on issues of education and the creeping influence of identity politics into their schools and curriculum are beginning to speak out. They are beginning to challenge the wisdom of handing students over to an unaccountable bureaucracy committed to turning out junior activists as opposed to burgeoning scholars. 

The educational bureaucracies from the state level down to local school boards, including community college boards of trustees, are rushing to implement administrative regulations and board policies, as well as approve curricular changes, that will normalize antiracist and gender identity politics in our education systems for years and perhaps generations to come. The sudden rush to augment and cement these ideas in ways that will be practically impossible to dislodge from our institutions should give us pause to ask: “Why now and why so intensely?
As “flyover country”—as it is disparagingly referred to by the coastal progressive elites—begins to wake up to the fact that education at all levels has been embracing an ideology steeped in racial and social division, the political and cultural leaders of these movements, who have used them to attain considerable administrative and political power, are desperate to enshrine them.
A primary goal of the recent rush to make these administrative policies permanent is to ensure that institutions hire the right instructors or that skeptical instructors will be forced to bow down and pay homage. The basic idea is to embed race and intersectionality so deeply into the “culture” of education that the only way to get rid of it is to dismantle the institutions themselves, something the masters of education don’t believe flyover country is willing or able to do.
So, for all of flyover country that has yet to wake up, here is what our educational institutions look like presently, from our view:
School mission and vision statements no longer emphasize education as the primary goal. Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) have replaced education or student learning as the greatest possible good. Creating students that are antiracist activists is more important than teaching students how to think critically and form their own opinions about the world. Grading equitably is more important than helping students master subject matter. Offices and vice presidents of DIE rank ahead and get more funding than offices of instruction or student services. Every dollar allocated, every decision made, and every grade given is viewed through a lens of how it best serves the activist agenda.
This “work” has been going on for a number of years even decades at this point, but as middle America begins to push back, the sense of urgency to institutionalize this agenda has increased, especially here in California. While California may seem like an unassailable bastion of social justice ideology and politics, cracks have started to appear even here.
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Though at times, Solomon’s language seemed to despair of any meaning to anything, he now sets forth this great truth, that, viewed from the standpoint of eternity and the perfection of God’s moral nature and the legitimacy of his law to his creature, nothing in the view of eternity is empty but all wi,l come before him for commendation or blame. His perfect standard will not be compromised.

In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, Solomon brought focus to the importance of strict attention to the written wisdom given by God (12:9-14). Solomon, from the beginning of this book, stated his purpose to employ all the talent and experimental method at his disposal in writing this book (1:13, 17; 2:3, 9). This is generally true of all the writers of Scripture. They do research, they reason on the basis of divine providence, and seek proper interpretation of already-certified Scripture. They look to their own encounters with God and his truth. According to the nature of revelation, many of the things that they set forth as revealed truth utterly transcend both their experiences and their self-conscious gifts. At the same time, they knew that at no point were they merely unconscious amenuenses. Instead, they were being used by God as he employed their peculiar gifts and experiences. Note how Peter said, “I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things” (2 Peter 1:15). This statement came in the immediate context of his testimony that his words were giving greater clarity to the revelation that had come before (19). He himself, was, like the prophets “carried along by the Holy Spirit” even in the context of his “effort.”  Solomon, in this task given him by God was “weighing and studying and arranging . . . with great care.” From a literary standpoint, he “sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth” (12:9, 10).
Though Solomon was engaged in the project as a conscientious literary artist, or closely reasoning philosopher, in the end he does not doubt that his product would be “words of truth.” He presented the image of goads and nails “firmly fixed” (12:11). This particular labor, though all others that he described were “chasing after the wind,” was of sober purpose and enduring value. These words, taken in the whole, embodied truth. Even as Paul before Agrippa and Festus, Solomon could use such language, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.” (Acts 26:25). The writers of inspiration were aware both of the use of their labors and capacity as well as the perfect truth and authority given their writing by the Spirit of God. See Luke 1:1-4; Romans 14:14-21; 16:25-27; 1 Corinthians 2:10-13; Ephesians 3:1-13; 1 Peter 5:12; 2 Peter 3:1, 2; 1 John 1:1-4; Revelation 22:18, 19. In each of these scriptural testimonies, we engage both the transcendent character of revelation inscribed by inspiration and the writers’ consciousness that their own minds and perceptions stewarded that body of truth.
Solomon was also conscious that this book was superintended by God and that its teachings, understood correctly, are sure guides as part of a larger collection of inspired literature. The “collected sayings”(12:11) were given by one Shepherd.  When combined with other inspired writings, this contemplation of Solomon as the Preacher gives depth and contour to the entire picture of the divine purpose of God in glorifying Himself through the wisdom of the plan of redemption. The “collected sayings” refer immediately to the accumulated argument of Solomon in this book and the conclusion toward which it drove him. By extension, this refers to the entirety of revelation, the “collected sayings,” at the end of the inspiration to record revelatory truth is final. Though many people will write books, one must make sure that the teaching of another does lead him away from the truths revealed in Scripture—“Beware of anything beyond these” (12:12).
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