Gratitude
Gratitude
I have a friend who is bent on teaching her grandchildren about gratitude. When one of them begins to complain or cry about some disappointment, she says, “Sweetheart, I know you don’t like what is happening, but you have the choice of making this a happy day or a sad day. What kind of day do you want to have? Do you remember all we have to be glad about in this day?”
Thankfulness is a thread that can bind together all the patchwork squares of our lives. Difficult times, happy days, seasons of sickness, hours of bliss—all can be sewn together into something lovely with the thread of thankfulness. Jesus was especially good at doing this. Once he was in a tough situation with a lot of hungry people on his hands, and all he had were five loaves of bread and two fish. He could have complained that God shouldn’t expect him to feed five thousand people with so little. But Jesus didn’t write off the loaves and fish as nothing. He noticed what was given and “gave thanks” for it (Mark 8:6). And in these less-than-perfect circumstances, God supplied all that was needed. We, like Jesus, have choices about how to respond to what life dishes up. We each have the power to interpret the facts of our lives. We make the choices that turn us into bitter or grateful people. Gratitude is rooted in the reality that “bidden or unbidden, God is present.” Carl Jung discovered (and popularized) this statement among the Latin writings of Erasmus: vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit.
Thanksgiving is possible not because everything goes perfectly but because God is present. The Spirit of God is within us—nearer to us than our own breath. It is a discipline to choose to stitch our days together with the thread of gratitude. But the decision to do so is guaranteed to stitch us closer to God. Attend to the truth that “bidden or unbidden, God is present.”
Reflection Questions
- When you feel at the bottom of the food chain and dead last in terms of priority, how do you move toward gratitude?
- When have you found that in retrospect you could have been thankful for something that you were not grateful for at the time it was happening?
How can this perspective inform your life now?
- How has a grateful person affected your own vision of what matters in life?
How has someone who lives out of bitterness affected your life?
- How does your disposition influence your attitude toward gratitude?
- How are you addicted to criticism, analysis and negativity?
How might thankfulness be an antidote to a critical spirit?
Spiritual Exercises
- Begin a gratitude journal by keeping a record of the “abundances” God has given you. Next to each abundance write what it means to you to have a God who interacts and intervenes in your life. • Notice what you have been given that you did not deserve. What do you want to say to God about these things?
- End every day by saying thank you to God for at least one thing. Then tell God what that one thing meant for you.
- Write a letter of thanks to someone who has touched your life in the past year, the past month, the past week.
- Get a current hardship firmly in mind. How do you feel about this hardship? Tell the truth to God. • Where is there evidence of God’s presence in this hardship? Is there anything you can be thankful for? • If you cannot find God in your hardship, spend some time with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. What does he want to tell you?
- What sorts of things tend to encourage you in thankfulness? Praise songs? Worship? Time spent with friends? Giving and receiving presents? • Plan ways of incorporating the things that encourage thankfulness into your life on a regular basis.
- Hold a thank-you party. Invite the people you want to honor with a thank you.
- Create a thank you scrapbook. Beside photos and pictures, write your prayers of thanksgiving.
- Notice your tendency to make comparisons that result in feelings of dissatisfaction or entitlement. Practice abstaining from comparative statements about what you don’t have. Instead give thanks for what you do have.
Resources on Gratitude
Life Signs or Here and Now by Henri Nouwen
“When Jesus holds up the cup and offers what is in it as the fluid of forgiveness, he is not talking to people with a short list of minor sins. He is talking to people who will turn him in, who will scatter to the fourwinds at the first sign of trouble, and who will swear they never knew him. He is talking to people who should have been his best friends on earth who turn out not to have a loyal bone in their bodies, and he is forgiving them ahead of time, as surely as if he had said, ‘I know who you are. I know you will not be innocent of the blood of this cup, but I will not let that come between us. . . . Let my life become your life, through the blood of this covenant.’ ” —Barbara Brown Taylor
Holy Communion
DESIRE | to be nourished by Christ, tasting the sweet depths of redemption |
DEFINITION | The Lord’s Supper celebrates God’s redemptive plan through the sacrificial death of Jesus. Through this meal of bread and wine (or grape juice) we join ourselves to Christ and feed on him in our hearts through faith. |
SCRIPTURE | “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them.” (Mark 14:22-24) “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26) “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.” (Acts 2:46-47) “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Corinthians 10:17) |
PRACTICE INCLUDES | partaking of Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament of communion |
GOD-GIVEN FRUIT |
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