Gratitude Part 1
God has been teaching me a lot about being grateful lately. It seems like such a boring topic. However, gratitude is very important to God, so it should be to ourselves as well if we truly follow Christ. Gratitude is the attitude of being well pleased, and conscious of the benefits we have received. Gratitude is a counter cultural idea today, and is a distinctly Christian virtue.
The opposite of gratitude is complaining and expecting more than we deserve. A few years ago during a church service when I was helping out in the nursery, a woman who I didn’t know and still don’t know was helping out in the same room. Throughout the entire 1 ½ hours, she complained about everything and everybody. I even tried to get a positive conversation going by talking about food. That too brought about negative comments. I was exhausted by the end of that church service. I was also wondering if I sound that way. Am I always complaining? I confess that I complain far too often!! It is unpleasant to be around complainers. How much more do you think God hates complainers when He has lavished so many blessings upon us, the most lavish being the life of His own Son?
There is an entitlement mentality that pervades our society and causes us to be a complaining, ungrateful society. A Virginia.edu article explains entitlement this way: “entitlement is characterized by a lack of altruism or team spirit. Entitled people tend to be far more self-serving in their actions and decisions than others. They have less interest in the common good. ‘Entitlement is a key component of narcissism, ’says Martin. ‘It’s basically the belief that you deserve more — more resources, more consideration, more privileges and rewards — than other people.’” (ideas.darden.virginia.edu/sense-of-entitlement)
This entitlement mentality was shown in a ridiculous way recently when anti-Jewish/pro-Palestinian protestors who chose to trespass on campuses, and act in unlawful and threatening ways made some demands. One Columbia student was talking to the press about them demanding food. A reporter tried to clarify her demands: “it seems like you’re sort of saying, ‘we want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building, now would you please bring us some food and water'”. How strange is that?
At UCLA, protestors demanded very specific things. They wanted hot food, and gluten free food, but not packaged foods. They also asked for more items like batteries and sleeping pads to continue taking over campuses and terrorizing the college students.
Who do they think they are? They are doing unlawful things and should be punished, not rewarded by giving in to their demands! Obviously they suffer from thinking way too highly of themselves than they ought to think. They are truly narcissistic. Many of them don’t even understand what they are protesting, and yet feel that they are better than those not protesting and deserve goodies that they didn’t pay for or earn. Their narcissistic entitlement attitude creates in their minds a delusion of their own grandeur and righteousness. I think this kind of narcissistic entitled attitude is at the root of our own struggle with gratitude, even though we may show it in a more subtle way than these protestors. We still struggle with it if we are honest with ourselves.
This is nothing new. Did not Satan tempt Eve in a way that made her think God wasn’t giving her all she deserved? In Genesis 3:4-5, Satan is making this case to Eve after Eve said that she would die if she ate of the forbidden fruit: “And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan made Eve believe that the perfect garden she was in wasn’t enough. She deserved more and God was withholding that from her. That led Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit and plunge mankind into sin. That attitude of entitlement continues to this day in every one of us.
The children of Israel in the Old Testament are the ultimate object lesson in ingratitude and selfishness. They were nobodies slaving away in Egypt without any hope. God delivered them from slavery, parted the Red Sea so they could escape Pharoah’s army, guided them in the desert with a cloud pillar, and provided miraculously for their food and water in the desert. Don’t you think they should have been grateful? But they were not! They thought they deserved more, and wistfully remembered the “good old days”. They blocked out much of what happened in Egypt and focused on what they liked in Egypt and didn’t currently have. In Numbers 11:5-6 they complain, “We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.” I can just see them turning up their noses at the manna and hear the whining voices!
In Numbers 16, there is the story of the sons of Korah who grumble against God’s appointment of Moses as leader. They said to Moses inverse 3, “’You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?’” They thought they deserved more and did not get what was due to them. What was God’s response? He opened up the ground and had it swallow them up. God takes gratitude and obedience to Him very seriously.
Another biblical example of extreme ingratitude is in Luke 17:11-19 where Jesus heals 10 leprous men. Leprosy in those days was a death sentence, and you had to be isolated while dying slowly in an agonizing way. This healing was an amazing thing to happen to these men! You would think gratitude and praise would be their main response. Not so. Only one man came back to thank Jesus, and this man was an outcast Samaritan. Jesus said in response, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine-where are they? Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God except this foreigner?”
In contrast to the children of Israel in the desert and these leprous men, perfect heaven will ring with thanksgiving. “Amen, blessing, glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” Revelations 7:12
It is especially hard to be thankful in trials. We have such a limited view of what is happening. We don’t understand why it is happening, and we don’t know how long we will suffer, or how God can bring us out of it. We also tend to be very forgetful about how God has helped us in the past, and who He is and what He is capable of. Gratitude is an important element in the process of trusting God through trials, because it shows our confidence in who God is and an understanding of how little we are in comparison.
I am in a very difficult trial right now that has sorely tested me in the area of gratitude. Our family suffered a devastating sudden relationship loss in the fall of 2023. Our situation is complicated and strange, with a multitude of dramatic, confusing, and wounding twists and turns that continue to this day. The depth of grief and pain is almost beyond enduring, except for the grace of God, the knowledge of His love, and the comfort His Word brings.
However, the pain of our relationship loss is the same as what all of you experience when you are rejected by someone dear to you. The pain runs very deep and does not go away. When each of us faces this type of situation or any other trial, we don’t know how God can work good out of this even though He promises to, and we don’t know if/when He will restore our relationships.
But there are many reasons to be thankful and many things to be thankful for in spite of the pain and grief we are going through. Not only that, it is essential to our well being, and God commands it. We know that what God commands it for our good, because He is good and loves us. I am learning that the importance of gratitude cannot be overstated.
Nancy DeMoss in her book Choosing Gratitude says, “…ingratitude is the taproot out of which grows a host of other sins. And if we don’t put the axe to that root, we provide Satan with a wide, vacant lot on which to set up his little shop of horrors in our hearts. Do you think I might be overstating the case a bit? Well, when you think of the first chapter of Romans, what comes to mind? You may remember that in the opening paragraphs of this letter Paul talks about the ‘wrath of God’ being revealed against the ‘unrighteousness of men’ (v.18) He lists ‘all manner of unrighteousness, evil covetousness, malice (v. 29), and a horde of other sins including homosexual perversion and its acceptance and approval in a culture-just about every awful thing you can imagine. But what is the beginning point of this vast array of vile activities? What starts people (and civilizations) down this path toward ever more serious sin? The answer is found inverse 21: “Although they knew God, they did not honor God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened’. That seemingly insignificant , innocuous matter of ingratitude turns out to be at the fountainhead of all other evils listed in this chapter!” (page 51-52)
If we look at the Bible to find what God says about gratitude, it is astounding how frequently it is mentioned! God knows we struggle greatly with this! I started making a list of verses calling us to be thankful, or admonishing us because of our lack of gratitude. I came up with a list of 58 verses. This is by no means an exhaustive list. This issue of gratitude obviously is very important to God, and as Nancy points out in the quote above, it is very important in our battle to stay out of sin. If God repeats something in His word, we need to sit up and pay attention!
Here is another quote from Nancy DeMoss's book Choosing Gratitude that helps us understand why thankfulness is so important to us and commanded by God for our good.
"I've discovered that gratitude truly is my life preserver. Even in the most turbulent waters, choosing gratitude rescues me from myself and my runaway emotions. It buoys me on the grace of God and keeps me from drowning in what otherwise would be my natural bent toward doubt, negativity, discouragement and anxiety. Over time, choosing gratitude means choosing joy. But that choice doesn't come without effort and intentionality. It's a choice that requires constantly renewing my mind with the truth of God's word, setting my heart to savor God and His gifts, and disciplining my tongue to speak words that reflect His goodness and grace-until a grateful spirit becomes my reflexive response to all of life." (page 17)
Let us be intentionally grateful to God each day. Let us apply I Thessalonians 5:18: “in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
In my next blog I will get into more of the specifics of how we can be grateful. I will lay the theological groundwork for gratitude. and then give us some practical application suggestions.
Bible verses to memorize in response to this blog: I Thessalonians 5:18; Psalm 106:1
A song to help you with thankfulness: O Give Thanks (Official Lyric Video) - Matt Boswell & Matt Papa (youtube.com)
For questions or feedback, you can contact me at candice@anastasihome.com