Last night as a family were watching a DVD of old I Dream of Jeannie reruns. Major Nelson becomes unhappy with the way Jeannie acts and wants to change her behavior. He buys her a book about the Arabian Nights and tells her to read it and learn from it how she is to behave as a Jeannie. He has never read the book and doesn't realize it's all about how Jeannie's can torture their Masters. He insists that she do what the book says and she is upset because of what she will have to do to him. So she obeys him and he gets tortured in many ways...beds of nails, being barred out of his own bedroom and having to sleep on a cot, hanging by his hands from a rope suspended over a crocodile pit etc.
Major Nelson finally decides to sit down and look at the book with Jeannie and realizes what he has made her do and why he was being tortured. He apologizes to her and explains that he was not thankful for her as she was. He says he realizes now that love means accepting the good with the bad and not trying to change the one you love.
I am a sentimental person and I have to admit I teared up with this scene. But what touched me most was the message. So often I am not thankful for what God has given me and I want something different and "better". Many times what I want that I think if better isn't. When we are not content with what we have, then we are being unthankful. This is an insult to God Almighty. We are basically telling God that He doesn't know how to provide for us. Life is filled with good and bad. We need to learn to take the good with the bad and be thankful for what we have. So much of Hollywood and advertisements are aimed at making us unthankful.
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