Tag: Gratitude

A Tribute to Wingrove Taylor

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Church, Education, Ministry, Theology, Worship

This past May, the Board of Trustees of God’s Bible School and College gave a sad farewell to its longest serving member Dr. A. Wingrove Taylor. At age 92, Dr. Taylor felt that he did not have the physical strength necessary to continue his role as a Trustee – a role that he filled with distinction for 44 years.   His interaction with the board was always professional, his contributions profound and his influence powerful. No man alive, who has not actually been an employee of the school, has had more impact on the life of this institution than Wingrove Taylor.

The Taylor connection to GBS began in 1905 with the arrival to campus of Irene Blyden (Dr. Taylor’s mother).   She was from the Caribbean Island of Sabba. It was at GBS that she met another student from the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts, Richard Taylor, who came to GBS to prepare for the ministry. Some years later they married and gave a lifetime of service to the development and expansion of the Pilgrim Holiness Church on the Caribbean Island of Nevis.

Wingrove came to GBS in 1948. He enrolled in the Christian Workers Course but eventually moved to the college where he completed two diplomas in music, a ThB degree and a BA degree. He graduated with honors in 1953. He returned to the Caribbean where he gave 41 years of service as a pastor, District Superintendent, College President, Field Superintendent and finally as the General Superintendent of the Wesleyan Holiness Church of the Caribbean. Dr. Taylor served as an annual camp evangelist for the GBS Camp meeting for almost 40 years.

Dr. Taylor had a remarkable influence on thousands of GBS Alumni and friends through his pulpit ministry and personal counsel. His influence on me personally was profound. Immediately after I became President Elect in December of 1994, he asked me to accompany him to the “old” men’s prayer room. We sat down in a couple of chairs and he talked to me about the value of prayer in the life of a leader and then prayed for me. In the following 20 years, I have turned to him again and again for wisdom and advice.

Dr. Taylor was gifted in so many ways. He was a musician, singer, scholar, author, preacher and administrator. He was peerless; he was fearless; he was orderly (he once told me that next to his Bible Roberts Rules or Order was his most treasured book); he was saintly; he was professional; he was careful; he was logical; he was Biblical; he was sensitive; he was sensible; he was authentic. However, the greatest gift he has given to me and to all who know him, is not what he has done in ministry, but what he has become while doing ministry.

The people I have put on a pedestal and felt they were worthy of emulation have been very few indeed, but Wingrove Taylor is one of them!

The Grace of Gratitude

by Mike Avery, posted in All Articles, Christian Living, Holiday, Theology

–November of 2003

The Grace of Gratitude

According to a medieval legend, two angels were once sent down to earth, one to gather up petitions and the other to collect thanksgivings.  The first angel found petitions everywhere.  He soon returned to heaven with a huge load of them on his back and a bundle in each hand.  The second angel had no such easy time.  He had to search diligently to find even a mere handful to take back to heaven.

Admittedly, legends can be farfetched and unrealistic or they can be painfully accurate.  This one, however, is much too accurate for comfort.  We would all have to admit that the high-stakes scramble for more of this world’s good has robbed the church of her voice of thanksgiving.  Our long period of materialistic comfort has made us easy in Zion and unaccustomed to the exercise of humble gratitude.

The Apostle Paul knew the importance of gratitude to the Christian as well as the subtle danger of ingratitude.  Listen to the music of gratitude that plays through his epistle to the Colossians:

Chapter one, verse 3:  “We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus.”

Chapter one, verse 12:  “…giving thanks unto the Father.”

Chapter two, verse 7:  “…abounding…with thanksgiving.”

Chapter three, verse 17:  “…giving thanks unto God and the Father by Him.”

Chapter four, verse 17:  “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”

Paul’s hymnody of thanks seems to center in chapter three, verse 15 when he says, “And be ye thankful.”

Paul’s strong imperative to “wear a garment of gratitude” is anchored to three firm convictions in the Apostle’s life.

Paul saw gratitude as a required grace.  Not a luxury but a necessity, not an option but a conviction.  Paul placed it among the required rather than the elective classes in the school of Christian experience.  I have a debt to be grateful!

I owe it to God to be grateful.  He has given me life, eternal life and the opportunity to do something with it.

I owe it to others to be grateful.  A sour, complaining spirit spreads gloom.  However, a joyful, cheerful spirit brings sunshine and smiles wherever it goes.

I owe it to myself.  Your physician will tell you that a mean, bitter, thankless spirit harms our health and robs us of life.  But of greater concern is what ingratitude does to us spiritually.  Of the thirteen plagues that came upon the children of Israel in their wilderness journey, eleven of those were punishment for murmuring against God.  In Romans chapter one, Paul charts the awful journey from godliness to godlessness.  He says in verse 21 that part of the root cause for such deviation is a spirit of ingratitude, “Neither were they thankful.”

Gratitude is also a ripening grace.  A more literal translation of Paul’s words would be, “and become ye thankful.”  We must seek the grace of gratitude and cultivate the grace of gratitude until we are “abounding with thanksgiving.”  This is not an easy task.  None will ever overflow with thanksgiving until they see that gratitude is an inner disposition towards life that must be worked at.  Life has its mix of good and bad – of the difficult and the delightful; but it’s up to us as to how we respond to that mix.  Some people in examining a bush unhappily see only the thorns; others rejoice in the fragrance of its roses.  The lens through which we view life is so important.  Jacob saw his days as “few and evil.”  He described the loss of Joseph and the famine that reunited them with these words, “all these things be against me.”  However Joseph looked at life through the lens of gratitude and described the same time period with a different set of words completely.  Joseph said, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”  We see exactly what we discipline ourselves to see in life, and looking through the lens of thanksgiving will ripen us.

If it often said among Christians that our reward is in the world to come.  However, gratitude is a rewarding grace.  It has its own reward for us right now.

Gratitude exalts God.  Very few things honor and glorify God more than the sweet fragrance of a thankful soul.  It expels gloom and ushers in sweet peace and blessed hope.  More than once the child of God has used thanksgiving to drive back the clouds of sorrow and gloom.  Gratitude encourages graciousness.  It gives us the politeness of soul and graciousness of spirit that can’t be purchased for any amount of money.

Let’s declare war on whimpering and complaining!  Let’s put away from us forever the grumbling and fault-finding that is such a blight on the church today!  Reach into the closet of God’s grace and adorn yourself with the garment of gratitude!  It will make a difference!