Gratitude Is Heart Work
I’m happily married with three awesome kids, living in a home my husband renovated, with three dogs, four chickens, and a garden to boot. My husband is a discipleship pastor, and I am an English professor. Sounds like a good life, doesn’t it?
You would probably think I ooze gratitude. The embarrassing truth is, I struggle to feel, express, and live daily in a posture of genuine gratitude.
That’s not to say my life is picture-perfect. Like anyone, I’ve experienced hardship, loss, and setbacks. When I dwell on those, I can easily get lost in self-pity and regret. But even when I’m not dwelling on my heartaches, I still find myself gritting my teeth and expressing far more frustration than grace.
An idealist at heart, I struggle to be thankful for the many good things that are always happening right in front of me. My life never looks quite as good as the picture I’ve painted in my mind. The more my life veers away from that picture of the life I want, the more tightly I wrap my fingers around the imagined life to which I feel entitled.
Where does entitlement come from? From the very beginning of time, we have believed the enemy’s lie that if God really loves us, if God is to be trusted, then he wouldn’t deny us anything we want. Human contentment was shattered by the devil’s manipulation that day in the Garden of Eden. From one generation to the next, we’ve continued to cultivate the lie that we know better than God what we need. From that seed of deception, a lifetime of discontentment can grow.
As my friend Valerie wrote recently in a Facebook exchange, “When I think I deserve the good things, when I believe those good things are ‘normal’ and everything bad is ‘abnormal,’ it kills my gratefulness.”
Other Facebook friends chimed in with reasons their own gratitude is so elusive. For some, accepting gratitude is difficult. Comparison robs others of gratitude, especially when they are facing difficult circumstances. Still others find gratitude elusive when the outcome of a situation is unknown. Some said they get tripped up when they try to create intentional and consistent habits of expressing gratitude to those around them.
Perhaps you identify with one of these reasons or could add a reason to the list. And yet, science backs the importance of cultivating gratitude in our minds. The Bible undergirds this truth:
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2, emphasis added).
As my friend Lauren reminded me, if we want to be grateful, the first step is accepting that [gratitude] doesn’t come naturally Like most things, it’s about what you want. Where do you intentionally put your energy, thoughts, and desires?
In an ideal world, we would all overflow with gratitude. Without intentionality, though, our hearts often flow in the wrong direction. We fail to focus on the infinite, creator God who values rest and gives all good gifts. Instead, we embrace short-sightedness, celebrate the “self-made” person, maintain a demanding pace, and believe we are entitled to all the “good” things in life. With this mindset, weeds of indifference, apathy, jealousy, and anger are the natural fruit.
Can we, instead, turn our focus to the real heart work God wants to do in us through gratitude? What might happen within us if we invited the Holy Spirit to teach and transform our innermost beings through gratitude?
To set the ground for this work, I think we have to start with humility as the precursor to gratitude. Merriam-Webster defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance.” As followers of Christ, we know that true freedom is found in God: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:17-18 NIV). God’s spirit woos us away from “the pride of life [because it] comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:16 NIV).
As we recognize that our lives are under the direct sovereignty of God and that he has our ultimate good at heart, we will begin to open up to and trust him instead of ourselves. When God is sovereign, we no longer have to buck up under the unbearable weight of making ourselves the false epicenter. When God is omnipotent, we can delight in submitting to his plan instead of clinging tightly to the plan we want. Humility decries self-importance and deflects entitlement. When we recognize our place and position, given to us by a loving heavenly father, humility is the first natural response and opens the pathway to gratitude.
Perhaps you find yourself in hard circumstances, and gratitude seems counterintuitive. Start with a simple meditation on this verse from Scripture:
“Let our roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness” (Col. 2:7 NLT). Trust the God who knows you to transform your heart and mind so you can see the many small and big reasons to be grateful, in this season and in the ones to come.
is a writer, Ann Voskamp intern, editor, and journaling instructor from South Carolina. A lover of the beach, the stars, and the lattes her husband makes, her favorite things to write about are motherhood, special needs parenting, mental health, grief, and faith. You can connect with her over at Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy, Facebook, and Instagram.
Photograph © Isabella and Louisa Fischer, used with permission
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