Gratitude

Tis the season to be thankful. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, for most, there is plenty of gift giving, meal sharing, and fellowshipping. Most people tend to be in good moods, or at least, better moods than they might have been before. It’s a season of giving, and in turn, that means it’s also a season of gratitude. After all, for every action of giving, there should be an equal action of gratitude. Well maybe the gratitude isn’t always equal to the giving, but, at the very least, almost everyone will do the bare minimum of saying “Thank You” when something is done for them.

For Christians, we have even more reason to be thankful. We are coming up on the celebration of the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. We should be thankful that God saw fit to save us. We should be thankful that Jesus was willing to lay down his life for us. In truth, we should be thankful that we get to be children of God.

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. - Psalms 107:8-9

As the above verse tells us, we should be thankful to God for how much he’s done for us. We should always be filled with a sense of gratitude. However, that’s often not the case. If it was, the spirit of thankfulness that we are all filled with during the winter holiday season wouldn’t seem so special. If we truly held that gratitude in our hearts at all times, what we experienced during this season would just seem commonplace.

In truth, with us, gratitude is something that is fleeting. When a good deed done for us is still fresh, we are brimming with gratitude, but in many cases that feeling fades away fast. That’s probably understandable in a lot of cases. After all, no one expects the act of lending five dollars to lead to eternal gratitude. That said, just because our feeling of gratitude falls away over time doesn’t mean that our memories of the good done for us should also disappear. Too often we completely forget about the good things done for us by others. Many people have found themselves on pursuits of success and, far too often, after they find that success, they forget the help that it took to get them there.

Perhaps more commonly, people struggle to feel grateful for the good things in their lives when it seems like those good things are outnumbered by the bad things. That may not have been any more evident than with all the events that have occurred this year. Many people have suffered setback after setback, and gratitude is the last thing they feel for everything that 2020 has thrown at them. Still, every dark cloud has a silver lining, and every person has something for which to be thankful. Some have lost loved ones and had others step in to comfort them. Some have lost their homes only to be taken in by family members or friends. Some have seemingly lost everything, but still, they have their lives. That last case in particular might be a scenario where gratitude would be the last thing someone would feel, but let us remember, as long as you have your life, there is always the chance for it to get better.

Consider Job. Few people have experienced hardship and loss like he did. Very early on in his story, he was informed that his sheep, oxen, camels, servants, and children had all been killed in several seemingly unrelated incidents. He had pretty much experienced about five 2020s worth of loss in about ten minutes. If there was anyone who could have been forgiven for forgetting about all the good in his life in his desire to curse the bad, it would have been Job, but that wasn’t his reaction.

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” - Job 1:21

Job didn’t curse his fate or God for his loss. He did the opposite. He acknowledged that all that he had lost had come from God in the first place. He praised God for having been given everything that he had lost. That seems like almost inhuman gratitude. Expressing thankfulness in the midst of losing so much seems unbelievable, but how much better would we be for us if we could be more like Job. Wouldn’t the pain that we experience in our lives be a little less sharp if we were better able to focus on the things we have as opposed to the things we don’t? Wouldn’t grief over the loss of a loved one be a little less severe if we were better able to hold onto the good times we had with that person rather than dwell on the fact that he or she is gone? Wouldn’t we be better equipped to deal with the big bad things in our lives if we were more cognizant of all the many little good things that are also there?

We see gratitude as an expression for the benefit of others, but the truth is that being grateful might be more beneficial for ourselves. Gratitude can help us keep the right perspectives. Focusing on the good in our lives, particularly what we attribute to God, can keep us in positive mind frames even when everything around us seems negative.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6-7

Paul is telling us that no matter what we’re going through, if we have gratitude, we can seek God with our desires for something better and in the midst of it all, we will find peace. If we want the good feeling that many of us experience during the holiday season to last on a more permanent basis, maybe we need to work on our gratitude. If we can learn to be as thankful year round as we are during the holidays, maybe every season will feel just as good.

Chris Lawyer

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