Towards a Gratitude-Formed Life (Gratitude VII)

Our souls need to sit in silence, and our hearts need to give thanks. Gratitude lifts us out of dark waters. It sails us above the squall. Like an eagle who flies into the storm, trusting the headwinds to lift her above the fray, so are we called to fly. So how do we establish gratitude as a practice that helps us see?

Like so many practices, gratitude is best learned as a daily practice. And like so many others, it requires a grounding in The Slow Life to make it stick. To savor something, our bodies and minds need to slow down. Negative thoughts naturally assail us and produce anxiety without any effort or intention on our parts. But a Generous Life grounded in gratitude takes intentionality and practice. Thankfully, even a few moments of giving thanks can be transformative, opening us to the Spirit of God and empowering us to love others as Jesus does.

Think about your daily life. How do your currently practice gratitude? How might you strengthen that practice? How might you incorporate new expressions of gratitude into your rhythm of life? It’s okay to start small; just start. 

One practice I engage—on days where I wake up before my children, which at this point is rare—is to roll out of bed and to spend some moments, usually on my knees, simply breathing, noticing my body, feeling the weight of the air and the morning and then praying the Lord’s Prayer. In the midst of this prayer, when I get to the first phrase, “Your name is good,” I often pause to climb the ladder of gratitude. 

Perhaps for you, a daily practice of gratitude will mean keeping a gratitude journal. Or maybe once a week you will begin a meal with friends or family in an extended time of giving thanks. My wife and I often play a game with our friends called “Highs and Lows,” in which everyone at the table recounts the highest high and the lowest low from the past week (or month or year). It’s a way of honoring one another by entering into lament and also moving into gratitude, together. 

Perhaps a daily practice of gratitude will mean giving thanks for all the stuff you don’t need and giving it away. We are so surrounded by stuff—even if we think we are poor—that the preponderance of “so much stuff” ends up ruining our capacity to feel gratitude because we are so aware of what we think we are missing. A powerful prayer of thanks can be, simply, “Thank you, God that I don’t need this or that to be okay” and then taking action to de-clutter our lives. 

To that point, fasting—a temporary, voluntary reduction in comfort so that we can more easily direct our energy to God—is a practice deeply connected to gratitude.[1]

The point is: listen to the Spirit of God and be creative. Gratitude can take many different shapes. Whatever the path, it’s important that we develop a consistent practice of thanks that grounds our lives in a posture of trust. And however you practice it, beneath your thanksgiving you will find a wonderful confession: “I’m weak, but You’re a Good and Generous Father, and that’s enough!” 

Let us move our hearts into this posture of thanksgiving, that our spiritual eyes will be full of light. In seeing the Living God, we are indeed saved.

For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'

[1] See ‘Chapter 13, The Grounded Life: Fasting.’