On Gratitude
I’m naturally an ungrateful person. When I survey the memories of my life, I mostly focus on the bad things. Rarely do I remember encouragement or things that went well for me. I always, without fail, tell the story of what was painful, difficult, or downright nasty.
I didn’t realize this until the past decade or so. I was so miserable that I didn’t have any context for people not being miserable unless they were lying to themselves. I’m sure you’ve encountered folks like this- they never have a bad day and they just have to put a positive spin on everything. That last part still kind of makes me sick, but I also realize now that I’m just the opposite: I just have to put a negative spin on everything. I can’t enjoy anything.
And that’s why, awhile back (I don’t really know how long ago), I started to take note of little things, everyday that I could be thankful for. As I’ve journeyed through my life, this has taken different forms. I’ve kept a gratitude journal, a jar with notecards in it, mental notes, journal entries about things I’m thankful for, just saying them out loud, you name it and I’ve probably done some form of it to keep track of things to be thankful for.
I credit this shift in my actions largely to reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann VosKamp sometime around 2010 or 11. Up until then, I had never heard anyone talk so candidly or so beautifully about the ways that they can see God in their everyday life. It was a whole new idea for me and it really shifted a lot of my perspective. Looking for tiny things to be thankful for everyday has made me a slightly more grateful person. I don’t know that it’s made me consistently happier, but I do find more joy in my everyday as a result of this practice.
Gratitude is like that. Have you ever considered that there’s a reason so many self-help gurus talk about keeping gratitude journals? Or that research shows that the secret to a happy life is being fully present in the present moment? Like so many other things, I find it amusing that our current culture has caught up to ancient wisdom and acted like we discovered something new.
The Bible is full of exhortations to give thanks, rejoice, be glad, etc. It’s all over the place. Have food on the table? Give thanks (Deuteronomy 12:7). Find yourself in need? Rejoice (Isaiah 29:19) Mourning for your city? Rejoice over it (Isaiah 66:10). Weather is good? Rejoice (Joel 2:23)! Struggling and suffering for doing the right thing? Again, rejoice (Matthew 5:11-12)! None of these apply to you? That’s fine, give thanks no matter what (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
It gets a little silly when I put the Biblical authors in my own words, but it really is like that. They go on and on and on about how much we have to rejoice over and how we can always give thanks. While you may be thinking that this is the kind of thing that would make me sick, it’s not. You see, when people just have to put a positive spin on things, they usually don’t have a good reason why they are doing that. They have to jump through a bunch of hoops to make it happen. Usually, in my experience, they just don’t want to have to deal with the harsh reality and the pain of the world around them- it’s a coping mechanism. No bad vibes.
But that’s not what the Biblical authors are doing. When these people talk about hope, thanksgiving, rejoicing, and gratitude, they have very good reasons to live this way.
They are looking at something far beyond this world. Their hope is in something that no amount of suffering, hardship, or discomfort can change, diminish, or take away. When we view the Bible as a piece of literature, telling us a cohesive story (that is, after all what it is), we get this wonderful picture of who God is, who we are, and what he’s doing in the world. I haven’t written much yet about my own personal beliefs, but since I’ve been asking you about yours for an entire season, I guess it’s my turn to lay it all out on the table.
The story that the Bible tells is the one that I want to be true. It tells a story of a beautiful world made by a beautiful and perfect being that preexists everything. This being is so complex and different and other than me that I’ll never be able to understand much about them, like a mug cannot understand the potter who shaped it. And into this world where everything is exactly as it should be, no more and no less, God (the being who made everything) puts human beings, the crown jewel of creation.
And everything is great. Until it’s not.
The crown jewel of creation breaks the crown. Humans decide that they want to trust themselves more than the one who made them (like a mug somehow declaring independence from the potter) and they (we) break everything. Sharon Hodde Miller in her book The Cost of Control discusses the idea that when we try to control things, we only break them more. We (humans) weren’t made for control and when we try to seize it, we shatter everything like a mug jumping off of the table in some irrational and devastating statement of freedom. We broke the crown and everything is lost.
You know it’s true. You feel it in your bones every time that you hear about another school shooting or another authority figure caught in corruption or another faith leader having an affair or another cancer diagnosis or another car accident or another bill that you cannot pay and on and on and on it goes. The world is broken. Everything is lost. There is no reason for hope or optimism.
But this is not where the story ends. I just summarized the first three chapters. Have you ever seen a Bible? There’s a lot more.
God, not being satisfied with a broken crown for creation, gets to work, again. Through a series of deeply complex and flawed people (read: humans), God tells a story about how, even though everything is broken and it’s absolutely 100% humanity’s fault, things will be made right again. The beautiful and perfect creation that was at the beginning will be restored and made even better. That’s the plan. And the one to do it? God alone.
Promises are made, children are born when it’s biologically impossible, teeny tiny armies of former slaves conquer strong nations with advanced technology, people are led by prophets who speak for God, there’s thunder on the mountain, God’s presence in a tent, temptation, failure, idolatry, lust, adultery, murder, exile, and a still, small voice. It’s epic. And the whole time, God is telling this story: “I’m coming for you. You broke everything, but I love you. I’m not satisfied to live without you. I will make everything right and beautiful again. Trust me”.
And then, after all of this, God himself comes as a human being; a man, to be specific. Jesus Christ is God. He is a man. He’s the one who makes everything right. At great personal cost to himself, God restores the crown and sets the jewels in their proper place. All that’s required is all that was required at the beginning: trust. Will we trust God or will we trust ourselves?
That’s really the only question that we’ve ever got to answer. Nothing else matters as much as this.
This is the story that I want to be true. Why? As if it weren’t good enough, it gets better.
After he does the hard work of restoring the crown and the jewel of creation, Jesus says some other things and makes more promises. He promises that this is just the beginning. You see, even though the work of restoring the crown and the jewel of creation is done, bad things still happen. Something is still broken. Jesus promises that one day, nothing will ever be broken again. And until that day, he invites the restored jewels in the crown of creation to be a part of fixing what is broken and finding what is lost.
This is the story that I want to be true because this is the only story that gives me hope. Despite what I face in my life, if the story is true, better days really are ahead. I could lose everything that I hold dear and die a horrible, painful death, but better days are ahead. Because one day. One day. One day Jesus will come back, he’ll restore the crown and creation completely, and everything sad will come untrue.
We’re back where we started.
In my first ever post to this blog, I wrote about sunrises and my new tattoo. The latter is a few words from a story by J.R.R. Tolkien: “Day shall come again”. At the end of The Lord of the Rings, in the third volume of that tale, The Return of the King, there’s a chapter called The Field of Cormallen. It’s my favorite chapter of the book, but also my favorite bit of writing by Tolkien. The chapter opens from Sam’s perspective, he’s the hero of the story. He’s just woken up and he doesn’t know where he is or when it is. He spends a few seconds observing his surroundings and making observations to himself until his memory returns and then he says, “It wasn’t a dream! Then where are we?” Gandalf answers him and that wouldn’t seem spectacular except that Sam thinks Gandalf has been dead for a few months. He saw him fall into a bottomless abyss in an abandoned mine, locked in battle with a fiery spirit of a much older age. Gandalf, who is decidedly not dead, tells Sam where they are and the circumstances of their position, walks into Sam’s view, and does the strangest thing: he asks Sam how he feels.
No context. No real explanation. Just, “Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?” And this, y’all, it gets me every time. Whether I’m listening to the audiobook or reading to myself, I tear up and I cry tears of joy with Sam as I remember the truth of his statement:
Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?
When the authors of the Biblical story talk about hope and rejoicing no matter what, they’re remembering, like Sam Gamgee, that they were once so badly off that they thought they were dead. And more than thought, they actually were dead inside, deep down in their souls where it matters most, and they were rescued. Through no effort or merit of their own, they were rescued, healed, renewed, and restored to a life “between bewilderment and great joy,” to quote Tolkien once more.
Even though I struggle to give thanks, even though I live many days as if I’m hopeless, even though I live in frequent unbelief of what I most want to believe, I, too, was dead and have been given new life when I didn’t deserve it. I, too, have been given so much goodness, that I can ask if everything sad will come untrue. I was rescued when I was beyond hope.
And so, today and everyday, I have the opportunity to give thanks. You can, too. And I believe that if you try it, you won’t be able to help seeing the hands of God in everything. You’ll marvel at flowers in springtime and leaves in the autumn. You’ll really taste your food for the first time and truly enjoy it and appreciate the person who made it. Your life will change. And I hope that you’ll consider what I’ve said and give Jesus a chance. I hope that you’ll take him at his word, not someone else’s. I hope that, for you too, everything sad will come untrue.