"And you will say in that day: 'Give thanks to the Lord…'" (Isaiah
6. GRATITUDE CHANGES EVERYTHING "And you will say in that day: 'Give thanks to the Lord…'" (Isaiah 12:4). Throughout this book we have talked about many ways in which developing gratitude in our lives can help both us and others. In this closing chapter we will tie those thoughts together and look a little more deeply at some of the most important reasons why the often-neglected virtue of thankfulness is so vital for the Christian life. Consider three important aspects of this truth: The Joy Connection: Gratitude Brings Happiness to Us Although, as we saw earlier, gratitude is not just a feeling, it is true that the more we express appreciation, the more we find happiness in doing so. This is because lasting happiness is not found in occasionally expressing thanks, but in developing and maintaining a grateful attitude and disposition. We grow both our gratitude and our joy as we learn to give thanks mentally whenever we become aware of a blessing we are receiving, and also through regular gratitude-filled prayer. Using this dual approach, we not only make the practice of thanksgiving a habit, but also, at an even deeper level, we come to make appreciation a part of our nature.
This is important because it is only this kind of ongoing attitude of thankfulness that can protect us from ingratitude and its resulting problems of envy and resentment. Without gratitude we live lives of always taking what we have for granted and endlessly wanting more. This approach to life brings very little happiness – and what little joy it does bring is usually short-lived or all too frequently negated by alternating feelings of entitlement and frustration.
However, once we come to see our very existence and everything we have within it as a gift, our lives change dramatically. We no longer measure our happiness by what we have or do not have. Gratitude for what we have been given humbles us and helps us to see the value of every gift we receive. Our lives become much happier as we begin to recognize and to more deeply enjoy things we would otherwise have taken for granted. As the apostle Paul wrote, we come to be "overflowing with thankfulness" (Colossians 2:7), and our heightened sense of God's protection and blessing means that we are more likely to look to the future with hope rather than with anxiety.
But there are even deeper spiritual reasons why making gratitude part of our lives creates lasting happiness. Because thankfulness in all situations is the ultimate expression of the acceptance of God's will, gratitude is the ultimate banisher of bitterness. Although age, accident, illness or other problems may rob us of many things in our lives, gratitude sees what remains, not what was lost. We may not be able to run, but gratitude is thankful that we can still walk. We may not be able to sing, but gratitude is truly appreciative that we can still talk. This is not a matter of living by a "half-full glass" versus a "half-empty glass" kind of psychology, but a matter of sane spiritual perspective. When we come to see everything as a gift from the One who gives and takes away (Job 1:21), we are much less likely to be affected by bitterness and more likely to accept what is as what is best.
In fact, when we are gratitude-focused, we better recognize the activity of God behind every circumstance, even the seemingly bad ones – just as the patriarch Joseph was able to do after his brothers sold him as a slave and he said: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20 ESV).
This kind of full and ongoing gratitude not only brings us happiness and liberates us from many of the failings of our own inherent human nature, but also it becomes a source of ongoing encouragement that inspires us to live more productive lives that are shaped by thankfulness.
Active Gratitude: Gratitude Brings Happiness to Others Researchers Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley decided to study the benefits of gratitude on personal well-being. To test their theory, they conducted a series of three experiments with hundreds of participants. Each person wrote an email to someone in their lives expressing gratitude. Afterward, they asked the participants to predict how the recipients would react to their letters in terms of how surprised and happy the message made them feel.
As it turns out, all participants in the study, no matter their race, age, or gender, consistently underestimated the positive impact the letters would have on the people reading them. Contrary to their predictions, the letters had overwhelmingly positive responses. In fact, the recipients frequently described feeling very touched, surprised, and happy about receiving the letters.
The study, published in the Journal of Psychological Science, reveals a very interesting aspect of human behavior. People tend to undervalue the huge positive impact that gratitude has on themselves and others.
While it is a fact that many good works have been accomplished in this world by individuals who were moved to challenge and change unhappy situations, our active gratitude for good things can also sometimes affect others in a positive manner far beyond what we might expect.
I recently saw a perfect and inspiring example of this in the newsletter of a cleft palate repair charity. It told the story of Natsir, a poor farmer from Indonesia. Two of his sons, Alwi and Winner, were born with cleft lips, but Natsir's meager income meant that getting surgery for his children was impossible. An American tourist passing through his area told Natsir of the cleft charity that could help him, and as a result of this information the farmer was able to arrange for both of his sons to receive free cleft repair surgeries.
After experiencing what must indeed have seemed like unbelievable good fortune, Natsir was immensely grateful and his
thankfulness led him to begin to look for other children suffering with clefts who could be helped in the same way his own children had been. Although unable to help them financially, the grateful father began volunteering as much time as possible to find these children and to bring them to the cleft charity doctors. The newsletter told how in less than two years, Natsir's gratitude-driven commitment helped over 70 children with cleft lips and palates receive free surgeries – rescuing them from the same plight his own children had suffered through a disfigurement that impacted their social interactions and education and even such basic aspects of life as speaking and eating.
This story underscores the truth that deep thankfulness has immense potential to "grow" good where there was none before. As Christians we find that because our lives are changed, we are thankful; but our thankfulness also helps change our lives and those of others. It's a point worth pondering – the more we focus on appreciation for the good we have been given, the more good we can bring about in the lives of those affected by our gratitude. Paul spoke of this chain-reaction when he wrote to the Corinthians: "All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God" (2 Corinthians 4:15).
The Gift of Gratitude: Gratitude Brings Happiness to God Although God gives us the potential for gratitude, our thankfulness is one of the few things we can give to God that does not originate with him. While this may sound surprising, it's clear that anything physical we give to God ultimately came from him to begin with, and this is true of most spiritual things, also. Take love, for example. Although we may often feel our love for God is something that we produce, the Bible is clear that much of it originates with God. Not only does Scripture tell us that we love God and others "because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19), but it specifically states that: "… God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit, who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5). But there are no such scriptures regarding gratitude. Instead, as we have seen, we find the Bible continually urging us to gratitude that, while it may be strengthened by God, must originate with us.
Precisely because gratitude is something that comes from us and is offered to God, our expressions of thanks are themselves prayers with which God can be truly pleased. Gratitude becomes a sacrifice we make – just as we read in the Old Testament: "… I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving" (Jonah 2:9 NKJV). Perhaps better than anything else, regularly expressed gratitude can help us stay close to God in our daily walk with him. Pain and problems may bring us to God at times, but it is gratitude that "holds the door open" for us and helps make our fellowship continual.
That is perhaps why the virtue of gratitude figures so prominently within the Scriptures and why study of them can guide us in further developing this attitude. But the importance of thankfulness in our relationship with God is particularly stressed in two books of the Bible – one in the Old Testament and one in the New.
In the Old Testament you doubtless guessed that the book stressing gratitude above all others is the book of Psalms. If you would like to further develop thankfulness to God in your life, a first priority should be to read the psalms from this perspective. It is in Psalms that we find an expression that appears more times than any other in the Bible regarding gratitude: "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever" (Psalm 107:1, etc.). This expression appears in many different contexts throughout the book, and it is by reading them carefully that we can come to learn much about what the grateful life looks like.
In the New Testament, perhaps again not unexpectedly, the book that stresses gratitude more than any other is one of the apostle Paul's epistles – his letter to the Colossians. Gratitude is a theme to which the apostle returns repeatedly in this letter, and we could hardly end this book in a more fitting way than by quoting again the verse from Colossians with which we began it:
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).
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