Bonhoeffer

If we do not give thanks daily in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry…then we hinder God from letting us grow. –Dietrich Bonhoeffer (with my small revisions)

In Afghanistan I have discovered Bonhoeffer. I have read him before, but never really had the energies and time to meditate on his words. The past few years I have been stuffing and reserving much brain space for things such as EKG rhythms and signs and symptoms of different types of shock, ect. It is quite refreshing to have the brain power to be able to handle Bonhoeffer.
For me the above passage (which with my revisions I may have massacred-sorry Mr. D.B.), has been so helpful. My expectations sometimes far exceed my reality. Sometimes this causes me to be scared to hope, expect the worse, and if it turns out better I’ll be even more excited. But life without hope is dull and depressing. Sometimes I take the opposite approach, get so so so excited and when reality comes to pass, I complain that it has not lived up to all I have hoped for.
What I think big Mr. D.B. was getting at was we should take neither approach I am usually accustomed to choose between. Instead, we should be thankful to God for every good in every situation. BUT we should also not accept mediocracy and overlook the changes that need to be made. “We should work for change and improvement, but we will only do this effectively if we are thankful for the good that is already there.”