Thanksgiving Week | Mini Blog Series
1. Guard Yourself with Gratitude: Mental Health & Thanksgiving
I’m not preaching Wednesday, but I couldn’t help my mind from drifting back over something that I am deeply convinced of. The rightness of it has been confirmed over and over again through more than four decades of pastoral ministry, and I have tried to practice it. Gratitude (thanksgiving) is one of the most enriching, powerful, and life-transforming practices we can engage in. It is also something we can all work on and improve.
I’ve preached a lot on mental and emotional health, and the Bible makes a big deal about it. How do I know this? Well, for one, the premier mental health chapter in the Bible is Philippians 4:4-9. It’s no accident that it opens with, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice!” Instead of spending hundreds of dollars to talk to a therapist, just practicing gratitude can contribute boatloads to you overall well-being and relationships. Mental health begins with and is sustained in the environment of a grateful heart.
Whether it be a direct quote or a compilation, this was written in my files: “Gratitude is good for our mental health. It changes the way our brains function. It brings discipline to our thoughts, and it redirects our attention to thought patterns that are good for us rather than destructive. It reduces depression, envy, frustration, regret, and other negative emotions that work against us. It can literally change our minds. So, count your blessings. If you make the effort, you’ll never run out of things to be grateful for.”
The soundest man who ever lived was Jesus of Nazareth. When He spoke about “abundant life,” it was something that He practiced in His own life. All of the Gospels focus heavily on the last week of His life, what is referred to as "holy week." Rightly so, because everything He had taught, modeled, and declared came to a culmination. It was the high-water mark of our Lord’s earthly ministry.
Paul writes, “On the same night in which He was betrayed, He took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it.” On this fateful night there was certainly a lot going on, but one poignant takeaway was the Lord’s thanksgiving or His “eucharist.” This word means to give thanks as an expression of joy in and toward God, a recognition of our debt to Him. Stop and think about it. Dark, ominous clouds were rolling in on Him. Whether it was Judas’ betrayal, the weight of being made the Sin-bearer, the demonic torment against his soul, the people’s fickle rejection, or be ultimate worst, the Father’s wrath… He gave thanks.
Do we want the peace of God to keep sentry over our minds and emotions? No wonder the scripture tells us “in everything give thanks." John Piper captured it: “Unless the song of thanksgiving is being sung in our hearts, the enemy outside will deceive his way into the city of our soul, and the enemy sympathizers within will make his job easy. So, for the sake of your own safety, strive to fill your heart with thanksgiving. Guard yourselves with gratitude!”
2. The Great Equation: Grace + Humility = Gratitude
“Follow the science,” has been the relentless, and often politically hypocritical mantra of the last six months. What’s been so confusing and aggravating is how selective this “science” is. We’re lectured about it when it fits into a particular narrative and conveniently ignore it at other times. It feels that science has been given almost omnipotent qualities.
This doesn’t mean that I am anti-science at all. Christianity and science are not polar opposites, but they do complement each other. What I am against is scientism, believing that science is the ultimate truth. Rather, science is a tool for helping us understand how the natural world operates and using it to see the effects of gratitude is no exception. Studies have consistently shown that gratitude is a powerful force for creating positive changes in individuals, marriages, families, churches, and organizations. Translated, this direct correlation means work on your thankfulness and all of life improves.
Here is a sampling of just some of the research findings:
*Grateful people have more energy, happiness, and friends and also enjoy better sleep and overall health.
*Counting acts of kindness done and received increases levels of positivity.
*A study of resilience and emotions following the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S. found that gratitude helps people cope with painful and stressful life events.
*Grateful people are more helpful people because they remember how thankful they feel when helped.
*Gratitude reduces negative comparisons with others.
*When we express our gratitude to others, we strengthen our relationship with them.
*Gratitude reduces negative emotions like anger, envy, and anxiety. Just like lymph nodes are the immune system’s first line of defense, thanksgiving operates the same way in our attitudes overall sense of well-being.
For further clarification, thanksgiving is more than saying “thank you” for a present or benefit we’ve received. The world’s most prominent researcher and writer about gratitude, Robert Emmons, said it is “a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life.” We can conclude from this that people who are constantly complaining how unhappy they are may need to check on their gratitude levels.
Okay, so how do I fill my “gratitude tank?” First, recognize that it can’t be relegated to a holiday that comes once a year. We can only boost our gratitude by increasing the frequency of it throughout the day, week, month, and year. Second, expand the number of things we’re
grateful for (here’s a good place for a written list if you need help). Finally, widen the people we express gratitude to.
According to Emmons, the most effective multiplier of gratitude is humility: “At the cornerstone of gratitude is the notion of undeserved merit. The grateful person recognizes that he or she did nothing to deserve the gift or benefit; it was freely bestowed.” This means that Christians have a huge advantage, given that our whole lives and faith is based on grace, the sense of a completely undeserved salvation that has been freely given us by a gracious God. When you lose sight of God’s grace or allow a sense of entitlement to creep in, you can be sure that gratitude will begin to shrivel.
I love the verse Zechariah 4:7 describing the completion of the temple: “And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of ‘grace, grace to it!’” The building blocks of our lives, which make up the temple God inhabits, is only going to be finished with a sense of wonder at God’s grace. Which is also the well where the waters of gratitude are at their peak. Can I get an “Amen”?
3. Gratitude is Truly Transformational
The advertising industry is a large and influential one. A big part of modern advertising is not just informational, here’s a product and you will like it because it works. Much of it has become a huge hype machine. There are ads promoting new drugs treating every kind of ailment. Huge money is spent promoting a new diet that guarantees that pounds will vanish. The supplement industry and its unregulated behavior is promising everything under the sun.
This is not a wholesale indictment of all of these things but my point is that few, if any, are truly transformational. I know from my own experience and thousands of others that there is a practice that is definitely transformational and that is gratitude or thanksgiving. “Gratitude is a spiritual act used by God in transforming us through the struggles of the human condition and to enable a positive resting in the work of Christ.”
This is one of those areas where science is finally catching up to the Bible. Historically, the field of psychology has focused on mental illness and dysfunction. All the areas that are wrong or destructive in your life. Since 1998 there has been a new subdiscipline known as positive psychology. Instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, positive psychology focuses on the fulfilling aspects of the human experience.
According to PsychNET, there were only 30 articles from 1989 to 1993 that dealt in any way with gratitude. In the next five years the number doubled to 66. This redoubling has continued every five years, s0o in the stretch from 2009 to 2013, there have been more than 640 articles dealing with the practice and power of gratitude. One author said, “The science of mental processing has finally caught up to Abraham Lincoln and our national holiday.”
An article in the August 2013 edition Journal of Clinical Psychology (the top of everyone’s reading list 12) was entitled “Gratitude as a Psychotherapeutic Intervention.” It catalogued that there are dramatic and lasting benefits in both the physical and psychological realms related to thanksgiving. In the physical domain, gratitude can lower blood pressure, improve immune functioning, and increase energy. In the psychological realm, gratitude has been shown to reduce depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. It protects against many destructive impulses in the human personality. On the positive side, gratitude promotes happiness, generosity, joy, love, and enthusiasm. To top it off, research suggests that the effect of gratitude is larger than even optimism, hope, or compassion.
In other words, be more thankful. Two thousand years ago, the apostle James, long before modern psychology, instructed “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.”
Why does gratitude carry such power to transform our lives, our outlook, and our relationships? The reason is that it is the opposite of self-centeredness. Instead of moving through life focused on me, me, me, gratitude helps be get my eyes off of myself and onto God and others. When I do this, a life of continual thankfulness can flourish, where I am being constantly renewed and progressively being made more like Jesus.
From my days of playing ice hockey, let me leave you with a hat trick (score 3 goals) that’s found in (Colossians 3:15-17) “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
4. Start with the Small Things
Anyone who’s competed in sports knows the feeling and frustration of being in a slump. Joe Torre, former manager of New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez, would say, “Think small, and big things will happen.” Meaning, the way out of a hitting funk was for the batter to not try and do too much. Instead, concentrate on the little things. Paying attention to those small basic things would then lead to big wins.
This has great meaning this Thanksgiving week. We often don’t inspire gratitude in others (much less ourselves) because people think they already know what you’re going to say. So, little, if anything at all, changes. Sometimes it’s because we’re thinking big when we need to start small. In the Book of Proverbs Solomon points us to great wisdom that is found in ants, locusts, and spiders. The point is don’t underestimate them because they are little – because great things come in small packages!
Let me help get the ball rolling for you by pointing out a few “small” things that should spark gratitude.
- Clean water: What a blessing it is to have access to fresh water. Nearly 1 billion people lack access to safe water, and it's been calculated that women spend 200 million hours each day collecting water around the world. Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related illness. Many non-profits, like Into Africa, focus a lot on digging wells for access to fresh water. The next time you turn on your tap and there’s clean water, start thanking God.
- Sunshine: We take it for granted living in Tucson, AZ where there are 300 sunny days a year. Steve Pinnick told of living in the Seattle area and going 38 days without seeing the sun. It was actually depressing. If you get up in the morning and the sun is shining, hey, it's an opportunity to thank God.
- Electricity: I’ll never forget my first visit to Sierra Leone with Pastor Smith. We’d leave the crusades ground in the area of Wilberforce and drive back to the hotel. We’d turn this specific corner which afforded a view over the whole city of Freetown, and there was great drama whether or not there would be electricity or not. Every time you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and flip on the lights with a switch, you’ve got it good. You can start thanking God.
- Communication: It’s hard to imagine living in a time when if you’d write a letter it would take weeks if not months for it to arrive at its destination. Today, we have instant access anywhere in the world. We can pick up the phone, send an email or text, or video chat via Skype or Zoom. Months into the Covid-19 lockdown, I became so grateful just to hear someone’s voice and more so their face (even if wearing a mask). The next time the phone rings, don’t just view it as an interruption. Take a moment to thank the Lord.
- Pain: I can write a whole chapter here, but suffice it to say, pain is your friend. Yes, you heard me right. I’ve lived for 47 years in a wheelchair as an L-1 paraplegic. Do you know where most of my physical problems have resulted from? Not being able to feel pain. I can be doing serious damage and not even know it. While we spend so much time avoiding pain (not completely wrong), the next time you do deal with pain thank God for it because it’s your body’s way of trying to tell you there’s a problem. If we know there’s a problem, then we can be alerted to steps we need to take to find a solution.
We love big and large: big crowds, large events, etc. I’m not saying that this is wrong, but if you want to try and grow your gratitude, why not start small? Trust God to show you the big things that can happen.
5. Because God Says So
We’ve discovered a lot of reasons to be grateful this week. It is a critical element in mental and emotional health. It guards against various toxins of the soul like envy, anger, hatred, anxiety, and even depression. It promotes overall well-being, contributing to happiness and strong relationships. All of this is good, and I’ve mentioned how that “science” is finally catching up to the Bible in recognizing these dynamics in the human personality.
Let’s back things up a bit on the day after Thanksgiving Day. The reason that thanksgiving is so important and vital is because it is God’s will. (1Thessalonians 5:16-18) “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Yes, He commands us to be thankful always. If there were no other reason for me to live a life of overflowing gratitude, this is enough: because God says so!
One of the most common questions that Christians in our modern era ask is “What is God’s will for me?” You can make your own checklist if you’d like. What career path should I take? What city should I reside in? Should I buy this or that? Then one of the biggest, “who should I date or marry?” Who is “the one”? I’m not saying these are not important, or that we don’t have a desperate need for God’s wisdom in our lives. However, the point that needs to be made is that God’s will for our lives is a character question. Who does God want me to be? What am I becoming in Christ? Am I becoming more like Him.
“Give thanks in everything, for this is GOD’S WILL for you.” He’s not telling us to be thankful for everything. Not only is that wrong (He is not the Author of evil) but it is not humanly possible. The will of God is that we can be thankful in everything. I can be thankful to God for His grace and mercy no matter what may be going on in my life or those around me. In 2020, I have said many times “I am thankful, Lord, that You are in control.” There it is. He is the Source for my gratitude that must be expressed.
G.K. Chesterton said, “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take thinks for gratitude or take them with gratitude.” Brilliant. According to Chesterton, these are the two options journeying through life. We can take all the blessings He has given us, beginning with God Himself and then all His benefits or we can take them for granted. Just be assured that God’s will is that we will be thankful in everything.
6. Finishing Strong: "Thank You"
There is a great emphasis in Scripture not only on finishing but finishing well. Take for instance the general description of faith’s Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11 where it says, “These all died in faith.” That is a statement of triumph and trajectory. When they died, they died in faith, holding on to the promises of God. The goal of so many of God’s saints, down through the ages, is echoed in Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 4, “I have finished the race.” Ah, the sweet triumph when you finally cross the finish line.
I’m sure you’ve heard of people’s “famous last words.” We give them weight or significance because sometimes they capture the essence of who they were and what they lived for. One of my personal favorites is Paul’s last words to the Ephesian elders in Miletus, especially Acts 20:24, “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus.” The goal was not only to finish, but to finish with joy and purpose and not just as a grumpy old man.
This is also why I was drawn to Dallas Willard’s last words. He was a well-known Christian writer and philosopher who died at 6:00am on May 8, 2013. In his biography on Willard titled Becoming Dallas Willard, Gary Moon describes Dallas’ last moments:
"At 4:30am a nurse came in to turn Dallas in the bed. Her visit awakened [Dallas’ good friend Gary Black who was in the hospital room with him]. Moving Dallas awakened him too. Gary took Dallas’s hand. Dallas turned to him and told him to tell his loved ones how much he was blessed by them and how much he appreciated them… Then, as Gary described, 'In a voice clearer than I had heard in days, he leaned his head back slightly and with his eyes closed said, ‘Thank you.’' Gary did not feel that Dallas was talking to him, but to another presence that Dallas seemed to sense in the room. And those were the last words of Dallas Willard: 'Thank you,' he said, to a very present and then finally visible to him God."
I know that reads like a movie script. Not everyone is going to utter those last words in such a dramatic fashion when they finish life’s race. We can purpose to begin and finish strong by living by Colossians 2:6-7, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” The all-sufficiency of Christ will be more than enough for each and every one of us. Start now by asking God to help you grow in gratitude.