About Our Books
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Need for Gratitude
1. Gratitude Is Good for You
2. Gratitude Is God's Will
3. Gratitude Can Be Developed
4. Gratitude Is More than Just a Feeling
5. Gratitude Is about More than Just Us
6. Gratitude Changes Everything
About Our Books
INTRODUCTION: THE NEED FOR GRATITUDE "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all … giving thanks …" (Colossians 3:17). These words of the apostle Paul are familiar to most Christians, yet although we may know them well and even occasionally focus on them, we could all probably become more thankful and express gratitude even more fully in our lives. Many of us may feel appreciative and express thankfulness when we receive new blessings – especially if they are "major" ones – but gratitude at that level can miss much of what Paul was really talking about and what God intends in our lives.
Notice that Paul does not say "Give thanks when you receive something" but "give thanks whatever you do." In other words, he tells us that gratitude should be a part of every aspect of our lives – that we should make thankfulness a part of living, breathing, eating, talking: a part of whatever we do and who we are.
That is what this book is about. If you have not given serious focused thought to the concept of thankfulness, this book aims to help you see ways in which you can more deeply experience and express gratitude. This involves developing gratitude toward others and primarily, of course, gratitude to God; but to accomplish these things we must first recognize the lack of thankfulness that so often characterizes human nature.
Turning Ingratitude Around It is sometimes said that ingratitude is both the least recognized yet the most common sin – and there may be a great deal of truth in that observation. Over 150 years ago President Abraham Lincoln
summarized the situation regarding the people of the United States when he stated:
We have been the recipients of the choicest blessings of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown; but we have forgotten God! We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Certainly, ingratitude has filled human history, and it is frequently decried throughout the word of God. We have only to look at the well-known story of how Christ healed ten lepers and only one of the ten returned to thank him (Luke 17:11-19). We may read that story and think that Jesus was surprised by this lack of gratitude, but it is more likely that he was teaching a lesson by pointing out the fact that only one in ten individuals who were helped – even to this miraculous degree – expressed gratitude for what they received.
This understanding is clear in the writings of the apostle Paul. Looking back in time, Paul wrote of humans: "For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him …" (Romans 1:21, emphasis added), and looking forward in time the apostle predicted it would only get worse. Writing to his co-worker Timothy, Paul stressed that a time would come when: "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful…" (2 Timothy 3:2, emphasis added).
We have only to look around us to see that we live in such an age as Paul described, but while we may not be able to change the world around us, we can individually come to better see the importance of gratitude and to more fully make it part of ourselves.
Learning to Live Thankfully Gratitude has been defined as "a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible" (Harvard Medical School Health Newsletter). While the Bible helps us to understand that God gives all of us the capacity for such gratitude, modern psychology helps us to see that appreciation is nevertheless not innate – it a learned behavior. Gratitude is something we must develop just as we must learn to walk, talk, swim, drive, or to do many other things. We learn thankfulness through the example of others, by instruction, and by focusing on what it means that we have received something.
But true gratitude is more than only experiencing and expressing thankfulness occasionally, when we are particularly struck by some blessing. We must learn to make appreciation an ongoing and constant way of thought by developing what we might call a "gratitude reflex." This involves both motivation and practice on our part.
For motivation we must come to see the many reasons why gratitude is a good idea for us and for others – which is why this book looks first at some of the physical benefits that gratitude creates in our lives. This is not to say that we need to have some kind of "payback" for developing thankfulness, but that by more fully understanding how gratitude works, we can better see that there are good reasons to prioritize it in our lives and those of our children.
Next, we look at some of the spiritual reasons why we should develop a thankful attitude and we examine some of those reasons closely before looking at specific ways we can increase gratitude in our lives – in order to honor the One who has given us everything and who calls us to a life of living thanks.