Thoughts on Gratitude and "Through"

Gratitude is the act of taking ownership of a blessing. It is the final step in receiving something or someone into our heart and integrating it into our life. If we want to know the kind of person we are becoming we should take an honest look at what we are really grateful for. Even if we live in a mostly ungrateful state of mind there are things in our life that we use to numb our pain or escape from reality. We will begin to see this in what we honestly value and appreciate.

I notice the tendency in my own prayers that I can ask and beg and plead but often fall short taking the step of accepting in faith and giving thanks by faith. But that reluctance betrays a very subtle spirit of unbelief that leaves me short of fully experiencing the power of God and resting in the blessings and promises that I hear so much about. But when I remember to step over the edge of what I can see and feel and by faith and on the basis of His Word begin to consciously thank Him for the realities of the grace and blessings that I see there but do not yet feel inside, I usually begin to sense an immediate change in my spirit. If I persist in staying in that position of gratitude in God's presence and press my mind to continue to do what feels so uncomfortable at the moment or sometimes so illogical, my feelings begin to come more and more into alignment with God's Word and my perception of reality begins to rise out of the fog of confusion and depression into the light of God's view of reality.

This is certainly not natural for me and is nearly always quite uncomfortable, especially at first. I am not naturally as grateful as some others that I see around me. Of course it is quite possible that some of those I think are naturally grateful are just pushing themselves into that position with as much difficulty as I have but I cannot see the internal struggle in their mind, I don't know. All I know is what goes on inside of me and what God is teaching me personally. I guess that's what the word “witness” is all about.

As I again read Romans 5 this morning I noticed how frequent the word “through” appears in this chapter. It is almost like Paul decided to see how many times he could use this word in one section in his urgency to get us to perceive true reality. Everything we are, the condition we find ourself in both in sin and in grace comes to us “through” one of two Adams or representatives of the human race. It is impossible for us to be outside of that situation or to be independent. What Paul is trying to get through the fog of our confusion and self-focus is that a new reality exists through Jesus that already belongs to every one of us whether we choose to live in it and benefit from it or not.

Through Jesus Christ –

• we have peace with God

• we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand

• we have the love of God poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit

• we were reconciled to God while we were yet sinners

• we shall be saved from wrath

• we were reconciled to God while we were enemies

• we shall be saved by His life

• we exult in God

• we have now received the reconciliation

• those who choose to receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life

• one act of righteousness resulted in justification of life to all men

• through His obedience many will be made righteous

• grace will reign through righteous to eternal life

This list can look like so much religious jargon that can cause our eyes to glaze over with hardness from our heart, or it can be a resource of endless revelations of the reality in which every one of us lives that we can open our heart to receive with increasing gratitude, because gratitude really is the act of taking ownership. And what we choose to value reveals the direction our life is taking and the shape our character is forming.

Gratitude is both a reflection of what I already value, whether good or bad for me, and a choice of what I decide to value before I have the inward feelings of appreciation. My value choices in the past – and the choices of those who have shaped my life – have created the condition in which I currently find myself now. But the choices that I make now are just as powerful to determine what I am going to look like soon in the future. I do not have to remain in the trap of the lies that say I am stuck and I am a victim without any hope. The Bible presents the facts of a new reality that already exists if I will choose to live in it by absorbing it into myself through the doorway of gratitude.

As I was contemplating these ideas this morning the connection occurred to me of why our body language uses our hands to express this idea. One of the most prominent natural body language expressions of the spirit of gratitude is holding out my hands in a gesture of receiving. If someone were to come up to me and offer to give me a lovely gift and I just stood there refusing to hold out my hands to accept it, very likely I would miss out on that gift, because the message received by the other person regardless of their own unselfish motives would be that I am refusing their offer and rejecting their kindness. I certainly do not want to make this a monologue on the pros and cons of the holding up of our hands in worship or the various arguments surrounding that subject. I do believe that the closer I come to feeling free in my spirit and learn to rest “in Christ” the more natural will be my responses and I will not need to force myself to artificially produce the outward expressions. The externals of my life must always be viewed as the symptoms of the condition of my heart, not the core problems. “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

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