4 Things the Bible Teaches about Gratitude by Chris White

 So the story goes that there was a rumor floating around Oxford University that Rudyard Kipling was such a great author he was paid one schilling per word (about 8 cents US currency).  As a prank, some of the students wrote a letter to Kipling enclosing a schilling with a note reading "send us one of your words".  Kipling promptly replied with a hand-written note.  When the students opened the envelope, on a single piece of paper was the word "thanks."

  Thanks, thanksgiving, gratitude, appreciation.  These words have long been the province of religion and philosophy but now are even commonplace in psychology and self-help circles as the value of gratitude is seen to have a beneficial effect on mood and well-being.  In the context of Christianity, gratitude of the heart is actually a commandment because thankfulness to our Creator and Lord is a rich component of worship.  In this article I would like to share 4 things the Bible teaches about being thankful and how a gracious spirit of gratitude can be cultivated even is a season of depression or difficult circumstance.

   First of all, know that God wants our eyes upon Him because He is the chief reason we should be grateful.  The Lord is the giver of all good gifts in our lives.  We should be grateful for the blessings we receive but we should never separate the gift from the giver.  In his excellent audio series on heaven, author and teacher Randy Alcorn reminds us that God desires us to be excited about being in heaven with all its delights, but not the exclusion of being excited about being with Him.  All parents love giving things to their children they know will be appreciated and enjoyed, but would never want their child to only appreciate the gift.  They want to be appreciated and loved as well.

   In a rather chilling prophecy given by Moses, we read that Israel, whom God was giving a land of milk and honey (great prosperity in agricultural terms), would eventually have to be chastened by having their prosperity removed because the gift became more important than the giver: “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, lacking everything ( Deut. 28:47-48).” It’s important to appreciate the good things in our lives, but the things should never be appreciated above the One who supplies them.

  Secondly, the Lord would have us remember Him and be grateful even in the hard places.  As Paul wrote the Thessalonian church: ^“… give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thess 5:18).”  This has echoes from Job who said to his wife that God is to be praised not only when good comes our way but also adversity (2:10).  Choosing to give thanks to God on a dark day is what one author calls looking towards the sun.  One can choose to turn their face to the shadows of hard circumstance, but that is all they will see.  When you turn towards the light of God, the shadows will diminish because they are behind you.

   Matthew Henry,  the  beloved 18^th century preacher and Bible commentator, was once accosted by thieves and robbed of his purse.  Following this harrowing event he wrote in his diary:  Let me be thankful first, because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.  Sometimes we just need to be grateful that what happened to us wasn’t as bad as it could have been!  The true reason we continue to be grateful even in trials is that we know God is who orders every one of our days and therefore even our suffering is part of His good plan of growing us up and making us more fruitful as His servants.

   Thirdly, the spirit of gratitude in our lives can be cultivated by what we let captivate our hearts and minds.  In his letter to the Colossian church, Paul instructs “ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God (3:16).”  The early church was a singing church as well as being dedicated to the study of the apostles.  What is striking my heart here is the powerful synergy that exists between singing and memory.  I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t remember the “ABC” song they were taught in kindergarten.  Some people I know, now in advanced age, continue to refer to this childhood song when they are trying to alphabetize files.  Singing praise and worship songs, especially ones that are based entirely on scripture, enable you to memorize the truth about God’s love and glorious person and also the hope we should take in our relationship with him.

   Having recently experienced a great trauma in my personal life, I have found my mind wandering into some very dark and unhealthy places especially when I am alone such as my commute to work or now that I am in middle age, most every night when I lay in bed awake after having gotten up to go to the bathroom.  It has been surprising to find what often consoles me and bubbles up are praise and worship songs.  Some of these songs I have been singing for years but they were not necessarily that meaningful to me.  Now they have become quite poignant and comforting.

   Psychologists and self-help experts have long practiced the use of ‘positive affirmations’ to heal the mind and body of negative thinking and to spur on personal growth.  Although the practice has some naysayers, for the most part it is a respected tool because of its overall effectiveness.  In a way, the singing of hymns and spiritual songs by a Christian is an affirmation process on steroids.  The focus is turned towards the real source of any hope or strength we can have in this life: God himself.  Which brings me to my final point.

   The ability to have a heart of gratitude is resourced in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  This is what Paul speaks of in Philippians 4:12-13: “ I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.   I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  A very important point is made here.  It is not a denial of desire or need that the Christian strives to attain.  The secret of contentment then is not having fewer needs, although this can be an honest by-product of a lean period, but rather that Christ shall give the strength necessary to live joyfully even if one is wanting for something.  Of course we would do well to not exaggerate our neediness, for too often we mistake our personal greed for a need and this is not something that is gracious in the sight of God.  But the main point is God shall supply the strength we need to live in the day of blessing and the day of adversity.  We need not worry about conjuring up an attitude of gratitude but rather trust and lean into the strength the Lord has graciously provided.  Remember, the Lord may require you to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, or doubt, or depression, or deprivation, but He will never ask you to do it apart from the grace of His Spirit.  That, in itself, is something for which to be grateful.

   One author has made the piercing observation that the only difference between a monastery and a prison is the spirit of griping or gratitude.  Imprisoned criminals tend to spend every waking moment griping about their condition; while self-imprisoned saints (in a monastery) spend most of their day giving thanks to God.  However, if a criminal becomes a saint and begins offering thanks all the time, his prison becomes for him a monastery; and a saint who gives up thanksgiving, his monastery becomes its own form of a prison.  As Victor Frankl wrote, our ultimate freedom as human beings is to choose our attitude about our present circumstances.  God would have you to choose the freedom and well-being that accompanies a heart of thanksgiving.

On Keeping Calm and Carrying On by Chris White

Recently my wife and me bought some humorous drinking glasses at a souvenir stand while on vacation.  What tickled our fancy about these is that there was a black line around the middle of the glass.  Above the line it said “optimist” and below the line it said “pessimist” playing on the old proverbial question about temperament “is your glass half-empty or half-full?”  These glasses answer the question in a straightforward way: it all depends on how much is still left in your drink.  Of course, if you were having something stronger than a soda in one of those glasses, it would seem more logical that the words “optimist” and “pessimist” would be reversed to reflect one’s sensations based on their consumption.  All kidding aside, it does strike me that whatever your disposition tends to be, your feelings and attitudes tend to follow closely.  If a similar turn of events happened to both a pessimist and an optimist, they might experience the same result in the end, but their experience of those events would be radically different.  An example that underscores this was a CNN news story I watched a couple of years ago about an entire town located in Oklahoma that was leveled in a matter of minutes by a tornado.  As you listened to the survivors tell of their experiences invariably there are two reactions: “we all survived and that’s what’s important” and “after thirty years in this home, we’ve lost everything”.  Both will be sleeping in the Red Cross shelter and eating government surplus MRE’s that night, but one will fall asleep that night with gratitude while the other experiences the disturbing sleep of desolation.

A friend of mine, himself a fellow blogger and a realistic optimist, reminded me of Viktor Frankl’s famous words  “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way (from Man’s Search for Meaning).”  As an accomplished psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl knew what he was talking about here was true and vital.  Our approach to life, our way of viewing our present circumstances, our way of thinking about our perceived future affects our destiny and sense of well-being.  The good news about all of this is that when life circumstances are beyond our control, we can with the help of God possess a “peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:7).”  Let me pass on three principles from Scripture that point us in this positive direction.

Consider the words of Jesus about worrying over the most basic necessities of life:

^“ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (Matt. 6:31-34).”
I would suggest that the first principle is having a clarity that if the God of the entire universe concerns himself with your life (which he does), worry on your part should be downgraded to prayerful patience. When Jesus tells us to not be anxious, he is not describing an attitude of careless unconcern but rather forbidding us to worry ourselves sick about such matters.  To get into that state of mind usually leads us to an unnecessary panic that is quite faithless.  God does exist.  He does care about you.  Tell him in quiet or vocalized prayer what you are needing.  Convert the energy of worry into patient and persistent prayer.
The second principle comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
“ I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.  Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me (4:10-13)”.
What Paul is describing here is a contented confidence that God will provide the strength you need for what you must do that day.  In the parlance of recovery literature, this is “one day at a time” on steroids.  I chuckle a bit at this because I have had many days that were so bad, I was more on the “one-minute at a time” plan.  But the point is made by me writing this to you right now: obviously I made it through each and every one of those past days.  I believe it was the great missionary to China Hudson Taylor who said where God guides, God provides.  If you are in a hard place today, dare to trust that God will give you all the strength you need for today as you need it.  And tomorrow? Ditto.
The third principle follows: have the perspective that God does permit problems and difficulties to come our way for specific training.  The apostle James wrote “ Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-3).” 

When Jesus taught what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” to his disciples, part of that prayer is that God “..will not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  What is in view here is not the temptations of the flesh per se, (although they can lead us into all sorts of trouble) but rather the “trials of various kinds” that James speaks of here.  We would be foolish to pray for trials and foolish not be pray to be delivered from them, but absolute fools to think we can live in the present world without our fair share of them.  Often what troubles folks the most is the haunting question “is this happening to me as a judgment because God is mad at me?”  If you think that way let allay your concern by stating the obvious: if God was mad at you, you would probably be dead and in hell right now.  But instead, you’re reading this article.  Thus, the alternative explanation that there are simply some things God wants to build into your life that cannot be done apart from the crucible of personal suffering.  God does not pain our lives gratuitously, but rather purposefully, and that purpose is for good, even if the intentions of those who cause your suffering are completely evil.

We are not taught to be grateful for the trials, but grateful for the certainty that they will build in us a spirit like tempered steel, strong under stress.  Having the perspective that you have more to gain from a hard thing than you’ll lose can and does make it bearable.  Knowing that it is part of God’s specific training program for your life should bring a certain peace that surpasses understanding even in the midst of scary or painful circumstances.

One of the current pop-culture icons is the British propaganda poster from World War II that says “Keep Calm and Carry On”.  Good advice even if the Nazis aren’t bombing your house today.  But the key to keeping calm is not whistling in the dark, but a grateful heart and a sure knowledge that God is in control and bigger than the insurmountable problem you face today.