Embracing Gratitude: Recognizing Life's Abundant Gifts

but then of course in the tradition of the people of Israel and uh those of us who follow Jesus our God is a very different God the story of our God and His goodness and he is a god of abundance there is plenty with our God not just in terms of material good but of spiritual good of love and joy and peace and he wants to make that available all the time and all of life is a gift [00:02:06]

and so we are invited in the scripture to make Thanksgiving our frame of reference for life so Paul writes in first Thessalonians 5 Rejoice always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for your life give thanks all the time or in Colossians chapter 3 verse 17 at the climax of this great run of what a good life looks like Paul says whatever you do and where do you do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks to God the Father through him make thanks a part of what you do all the time [00:03:15]

and apparently even in English in Old English both the word think and the word thank initially were thunk t-h-a-n-c they came from the same root and the idea behind it is that if I'm thinking rightly I will see everything that I look at these books behind me the people who wrote them the folks who would publish them people who drive trucks to deliver them the chair on which I sit the Earth at which I look from inside here it's all a gift it's all a gift it's all a gift and if I'm thinking rightly thinking is thinking it simply becomes impossible to think about anything without seeing that even my ability to think is a gift for which I am to be thankful [00:04:02]

Robert Evans talks about four facets of Thanksgiving so as you move forward when you keep thanks we're going to stop the Gratitude challenge today but you keep it going I'm Gonna Keep it going he talks about these four facets to be a thankful person one is intensity um do I feel gratitude weekly or I think about Deborah Tannen wrote about her aunt who is obese and balding and elderly and she fell in love with the man and she was telling him about a lunch one time and he asked her what did you wear and she was recounting that to Deborah afterwards said do you have any idea how long it's been since somebody asked me what I wore she was intensely grateful that someone was paying attention to her [00:05:04]

and then there's frequency of gratitude do I experience it often my friend Gary was saying when he wakes up in the morning he's an atheist until he gets coffee and can take a look at the Bible so when I wake up do I experience gratitude when I go to sleep at the end of the day all through the day what's the frequency of gratitude and then span of gratitude do I tend to restrict it to just one thing to food or physical pleasure or am I obsessed with my work so I'm only grateful when that goes well am I aware of what a gift my health is if I am I aware of what a gift it is to be able to learn or to be able to talk or to look at the broad range of gifts of life so that's uh the issue of what's the span of my gratitude [00:06:21]

and then there's what's called density of gratitude and that's um how many people am I thankful for it's striking that the Apostle Paul over and over and over when he would write to people he would say I thank my God upon every remembrance of you well I'll think about that when I look at my wife and I watch the way that she is interested in people and will ask questions to connect with them in ways that just would not occur to me and it creates this thick network is too workish uh strategic a word to use web community of heartfelt connections that leads to great joy and great gratitude [00:07:19]

so I want to think about my life in a way that leads to gratitude to think is to thank and I want it to be done with great intensity and uh across a widespan and with regular frequency increasing frequency and with great density for all the people in my life so now so now today is Thanksgiving would it take a few moments for you and me to give thanks to God [00:08:02]

what gifts from God are in my life's cornucopia the blessings of creation surging oceans miles of clean sand and dunes along freshwater lakes murmuring streams still pause on which Canadian geese ski to a stop flowers shrubs shrubs trees birds that sing in the trees thank you God woodpeckers then answer each other and ratat staccato they didn't have to exist Landscapes seascapes Mountain Vistas the taste of sweet corn fresh fish colorful berries the feel of a puppy's coat thank you God [00:09:31]

the blessings of Providence rescue in time of trouble avoidance of trouble bad things that never happened food drink restful sleep wise and loving friends who would not dream of saying I told you so life crises that changed us for good pointing us in a different direction thank you God [00:10:10]

the written word of God in Scripture forgiveness of sin resurrection of the body life Everlasting hope and love and friendship through Jesus thank you God guys who get in their pickups and travel hundreds of miles to provide disaster relief for strangers parents children dogs that howl affectingly when hearing a violin angels that visit us when we are not looking [00:11:02]

and so we're invited to see that taste and see that the Lord is good and we have to do this we have to be attentive to it learning uh gratitude is something that we learn because we're all victims of what's sometimes called the negativity bias it takes five positive comments to overcome the power of one negative one um because survival favors those who are able to see when there's a problem we all skew in that direction somebody I don't know who it was put it this way uh it just takes one cockroach to spoil a Whole Bowl of Cherries but on the other hand a single Cherry does nothing to improve a bowl full of cockroaches [00:02:35]

there was an old pietist expression in the 17th century uh in in German which was that language where it was originally formed it was simply the expression thinking is thinking [00:04:02]