Gratitude – the state of being thankful. We all know how important it is.
“The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live…. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything. . Albert Schweitzer, Reverence for Life
It was important enough to George Washington who proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God"
It clearly is important to biblical writers:
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Always give thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20
Yes, thankfulness is essential to living especially in dispelling the sense of entitlement we Americans possess in abundance. (As Steve helped us grasp last week)
Gratitude is important we all know intellectually and maybe intuitively. But what if…what if your life is dominated by pain or tragedy?
What if you feel like Ann Voskamp who wrote this in her book One Thousand gifts:
How can God be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? Where is grace bestowed when cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless places in us soundlessly die, break off without reason, erode away? Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out? Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts
How does gratitude fit into that?
Or this…What if you feel like the young couple who wrote Steve this week after last week’s service: having experienced the terrible loss of a young child they wrote:
After enduring months of heartache, we find ourselves struggling with this week’s topic:Grateful. Please don’t misunderstand me; we DO appreciate the many blessings received during our child’s passing and funeral. But somehow as parents in the trenches of grief we have found ourselves struggling with your topic. We know that Gratitude can be a healer and a teacher. We ask for help and guidance as we find comfort and peace during this very difficult time.
Heart rending isn’t it…but they’re asking the right question. And today I would like to go there. I would like to ask these two questions – How do we practice gratitude in the middle of pain? And, how can it help us through our grief?
Psalm 69
Background: A Psalm of David frequently quoted in NT in reference to Jesus…but its significance is deeper and more personal not just theological.
Right from the start of the Psalm you get the picture of a person struggling with life:
1 Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. 2 I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
· this man is desperate and floundering
· Fact - It’s hard to be grateful when you have nothing to stand on and you are drowning isn’t it?
3 I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
· It’s not that he isn’t praying…he is…but to no avail.
· When pain is followed by prayer and that prayer is met with silence which happens sometimes!
· Even Jesus himself told a remarkable story about a woman who had to pester a judge over and over to get an answer and then Jesus equates that judge with God fact
· God does not answer all prayers immediately or always in the way we want him to. There is no such thing as name it and claim it.
· That may be true but it certainly doesn’t help me be more thankful.
· Fact - It’s hard to be grateful to God when he isn’t even giving you the time of day.
5 You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you. 6 May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the LORD Almighty; may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel. 7 For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.
· Here’s another kind of tragedy…another form of pain – self induced misery:
o the kind of guilt that disgraces everyone
o the kind of personal guilt that breeds shame
o the kind of personal choices that hurt others around us
· Fact - It’s hard to be grateful when you have been a jerk or have hurt other people or continually have to live with the pain of ridiculous choices
and then we come to the largest portion of the song:
4 Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal.
8 I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; 9 for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me. 10 When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn; 11 when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me. 12 Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards.
19 You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you. 20 Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.
· This is the pain of human rejection, alienation and hatred. In this culture at this time perhaps one of the worst kinds of pain because - public shame was awful.
· It is to us too: when you are at odds or have been alienated from someone for whatever reason…father, mother, child, friend…it is debilitating. And it can lurk in the shadows of your life doing great damage.
How can you give thanks in that?
· Fact - It’s hard to be grateful when someone hates you or you hate someone!
So here in Psalm 69 we have pain, lots and lots of pain…and we have plenty of desperate cries for help:
13 But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. 14 Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. 15 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. 16 Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. 17 Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. 18 Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes.
You’ve prayed like this haven’t you? Maybe not with these words but you , in your brokenness have cried out to God…over and over…but not with thanksgiving. Not with gratefulness.
How do we practice gratitude in the middle of pain? And, how can it help us through our grief?
Well, there is a surprise in Psalm 69. An all-of-a-sudden-what’s-that- doing-there- a-ha.
30 I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
What? I want to ask David….hey, You just got done 1) articulating your agony 2) saying that God is not hearing, seeing or answering…and you are now glorifying him with gratitude? What gives? How’d you get there?
We need to pay careful attention to what is going on here.
Ø I will – not want to, not I should,…but I will
o Gratefulness is not simply a emotional spontaneous response to a happy thing
o Gratefulness can and should be a a choice, a responsibility, a task, an act of the will regardless of our emotional state.
In a minute you’ll see why this is important.
Ø I will praise God’s name – not what is has done, not what he is doing, not his actions…but his character.
o gratitude can be a spontaneous response to something we perceive God has done but most of the time thankfulness to God is an act of theology – re-stating, reminding ourselves of God’s essential character.
Ø I will glorify him with thanksgiving – here is a crucial note about this word thanksgiving
o this word was one that was used not of spontaneous joyful celebration it was a word that described an act of liturgy - a ritual act of thanksgiving
o I will express gratitude to Him I always do every time we come before him
o The liturgy of gratitude – the habitual act of thanksgiving.
o note that it is compared to another ritual act: sacrifice of an oxen (Vs. 31) 31 This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs.
§ the sacrifice of an oxen was hugely expensive thing – few could afford it…maybe a bird, or at most a young lamb
§ Yet – God prefers ritualized gratitude over this deep sacrifice.
Think about that for a second – how many times in your pain have you made huge promises to God that declare you will sacrifice great things if he only will heal you…yet God prefers simple ritual gratitude any day.
What is ritual gratitude?
Liturgy is not in the end open to our emotional whims. It re-points the person praying, taking them somewhere else. Lauren Winner
· it is not usually emotional but volitional – an act of the will – I will…
“Liturgy happens any time we repeat one prayer over and over, week in and week out” Lauren Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath
· it is repeated over and over…it is systematic…it is a practice
Lauren in her book reflects on how important this ritual gratitude was in forming her. So that when the time of pain came she had been schooled in prayer and gratitude.
We see this same result in another wild story of pain – Jonah.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. Salvation comes from the LORD. Jonah 2:8-9
This was prayed in the belly of a great fish! How? Because he had rehearsed it day in and day out on dry land.
Here’s the point: Yes, gratitude can indeed be a spontaneous emotional response of appreciation but most of the time…in preparation for our days in the mire and in the belly of the whale…gratitude must be a willful, ritual, a daily act of thankful reflection on the person of God.
Ann Voskamp took this ritualized gratitude and reshaped her life with it:
This is a women who faced death, illness and potential financial ruin and who wrote this: For years of mornings, I have woken wanting to die. Life itself twists into nightmare. For years, I have pulled the covers up over my head, dreading to begin another day I’d be bound to just wreck. Years, I lie listening to the taunt of names ringing off my interior walls, ones from the past that never drifted far and away: Loser. Mess. Failure. They are signs nailed overhead, nailed through me, naming me. Yesterday morning, the morning before, all these mornings, I wake to the discontent of life in my skin. I wake to self-hatred. To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary. Years, I feel it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes.
· And then, two moments hit her:
o a friend dared her to start a list of 1000 blessings, gifts, things I love, common things
o Phillipians 4:11-12 I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Philippians 4:11-12
And Ann wondered if she could learn gratitude
I would have to learn gratitude. learn it to live fully. Learn it like I know my skin, my face, the words on the end of my tongue. Like I know my own name. Learn how to be thankful—whether empty or full. Could the list teach me even that hard language? Over time? Gratitude in the midst of death and divorce and debt—that’s the language I’ve got to learn to speak—because that’s the kind of life I’m living, the kind I have to solve. If living gratefully is the key to unlocking the mystery of life, this I want. I want the hunt, the long sleuth, the careful piecing together. To learn how to be grateful and happy, whether hands full or hands empty. That is a secret worth spending a life on learning.
And so she began:
Ann’s list…
1. Morning shadows across old floors
2. Jam piled high on the toast
3. Cry of blue Jay high in the spruce
…and so it continued to 1000.
Ann practiced gratitude as liturgy. As habit. As ritual. She said…”I will”…And it saved her life and it saved David’s life and Jonah’s life…and I believe will save yours.
I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
The result…at least for David:
32 The poor will see and be glad-- you who seek God, may your hearts live!
· Vs. 32 – A heart that lives = revived … we are revived because God shows up.
In gratefulness we are met by God himself. Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines
I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
I will
Praise God from whom all Blessings flow,
Praise him all Creatures here below,
Praise him above, ye Heavenly Host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
I will praise God
Praise God from whom all Blessings flow,
Praise him all Creatures here below,
Praise him above, ye Heavenly Host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
I will thank God
Praise God from whom all Blessings flow,
Praise him all Creatures here below,
Praise him above, ye Heavenly Host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
I will practice gratitude because…
Thanksgiving always precedes the miracle. Ann Voskamp