As we approach this Sunday’s services and the Thanksgiving holiday next week, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on gratitude.
Gratitude is one of the most prominent marks of a maturing Christian life. Since humility is a chief virtue of the believer, it makes sense that the fruit of an ever-growing relationship with Jesus would be an attitude of radical thankfulness. Think of its opposite: what fosters ingratitude more fundamentally than a prideful discontentment and lust for more? So, the Apostle Paul says, “godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Tim. 6:6)
Paul suffered greatly for his faith. And yet he frequently expressed his thankfulness–for the Church, for the proclamation and spread of the gospel, for grace, mercy, peace, joy, and victory in Christ, for his calling to ministry, for those he discipled, and even for his many afflictions (see 2 Cor. 11 for an impressive list!).
“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10)
German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, also wrote frequently about the healing power of a grateful spirit. He said that gratitude is a matter of memory. Keep in mind that he wrote the following after more than eight months in a Nazi prison cell and enduring interrogations by the Gestapo.
“Ingratitude begins with forgetfulness, from forgetfulness flows indifference, from indifference discontent, from discontent despair, from despair blasphemy. God shows those who are grateful the way to salvation. Ask yourself whether or not perhaps through ingratitude that your heart has become so sullen, so sluggish, so tired, so despondent. Offer thanks to God…”
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln first declared an annual, national “Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” to occur on the last Thursday each November.* He was also no stranger to suffering. He battled deep, chronic depression. His wife suffered a number of physical and mental ailments, including what was likely bipolar depression. Together, they buried all but one of their children. The nation he was called to lead was embroiled in a civil war that would result in the loss of more than 620,000 Americans–our country’s bloodiest war to-date.
If figures like Jesus, Paul, Lincoln, and Bonhoeffer could find a way to give thanks in the midst of their suffering, then we can too.
This weekend, let us remember God’s past faithfulness and give Him heartfelt thanks for the abundance of mercies and blessings He has poured out on us.
To read Lincoln’s 1863 thanksgiving proclamation (I highly recommend you do!), click here
*There were, of course, many other figures and events that influenced Thanksgiving as we know it today. To name a few: the Pilgrims’ 1621 first harvest in the new world, President George Washington, 19th century periodical editor Sarah Josepha Hale, and President Franklin Roosevelt.
Your brother,
Ryan