A Devotion for Gratitude

I imagine that by now, some of you have started cooking. Or baking. Or measuring, packing, preparing in some way to celebrate tomorrow. Whether the table you sit at tomorrow will be a small one or large one, filled with family, friends, or new acquaintances, I pray that the day you spend and the meals you share will be ones of peace, joy, and especially thankfulness.

Thankful. The word gets thrown around a lot, around with its sister words “grateful” and “blessed.” We see our social media feeds full of these words marked as hashtags, see them painted on whitewashed signs in homes and stamped on everything from journals to t-shirts. We love to say that we feel these things. But what are we trying to get at when we say that we are #grateful? Essentially, why is gratitude important?

If I could guess, I think that the culture’s current obsession with these catch words has something to do with a hope and a longing for contentment. When we say we are grateful or thankful, we recognize that a thankful heart and spirit is one that looks beyond ourselves. But saying that we are thankful, or grateful, or even blessed, is easy; giving gratitude, or rather, practicing gratitude can be harder said than done.

I think of the story of the lepers healed by Jesus in Luke’s gospel. As Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, he passed through a small village and encounters ten men with leprosy. They call out to Jesus to heal them, crying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

In response, Jesus commands the men to go to the village priests to be cleansed and healed. After all ten are cleansed, just one man, a Samaritan, returns to Jesus and gives thanks God. Jesus praises the man’s faith and tells him his faith has made him well (Luke 17: 11-19).

Though all ten men experienced healing, only one returned to Jesus in gratitude.

Now, we don’t know the fate or future of this man, or the other nine men who were cleansed. But we do know something about this Samaritan’s faith. We know that is a grateful faith. His response to Jesus’ compassion is to return to God in faith and worship.

All of these men had experienced suffering. They were all in need of healing and of kindness. And But the one who practiced gratitude, the one who return to God in thanks, his faith was strengthened.

Gratitude lead to a strengthening of this man’s faith and a strengthening of relationship between him and Jesus.

When Jesus notices that all the ten men did not return to him in gratitude, he doesn’t rescind his blessing; he doesn’t take back the compassion and healing he has extended.

But he does lament their lack of response. He mourns the fact that, in the face of blessing, they do not turn to him with grateful hearts.

Perhaps this is how we should consider our own gratitude – not as something that is required, but something, that if not shown – weakens relationships, prevents growth and saddens the hearts of those we yearn to be in relationship with.

Practicing gratitude in times of lack, or in times when it seems God is distant is no easy feat. In the face of disaster, it can seem like we, or those we work with have little to give thanks for.

For those times, it is good to remember that gratitude is indeed a practice – something we do over and over, even on the days we don’t feel like it, so that our muscles of gratitude are shaped and strengthened. Practicing gratitude reorients our hearts to the source of all gifts, the source of life, and of love and our hope – God. And all of that practice grows within us a resiliency of faith, and a resiliency of hope.

So this Thanksgiving weekend, take some time to return to God in thanks- for the blessings we are aware of and those we are not; giving gratitude to God for the life before us and between us, and for the life offered in Christ Jesus.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!

In gratitude,

Chaplain Amy

Below is a favorite prayer for Thanksgiving. It is perfect to share before a meal with loved ones.😊

A Thanksgiving Prayer
(adapted from the Book of Common Prayer)

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you’ve done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for our successes, which satisfy and delight us – but also for the disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ – for the truth of his Word and the example of his life.

We thank you for his dying, through which he overcame death – and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your Kingdom.

God, may we – at all times and in all places – give thanks to you in all things. Amen.