A Devotion for Cultivating Gratitude

Dear friends,

Currently, I am helping a dear friend prepare for her wedding and marriage. In the party planning, registry making, and décor preparations, I am remembering my own wedding, almost 13 years ago.

I have found that when you are engaged, you get all sorts of advice (whether you ask for it or not). Much of the advice from my grandmother came in the form of manners. Think of Emily Post or Ann Landers. She reminded me of what gift was appropriate for each anniversary, how to properly set a fancy dinner table, and of course, how and when to send thank-you notes.

I remember her clearly saying: “If you don’t send a note, people will think you’re ungrateful.”

After our wedding, surveying the boxes and bags and paper that filled our tiny apartment’s living room, I felt overwhelmed. I was happy to write a note for the beautiful china and useful vacuum cleaner, but the hideous green tea towel that someone had clearly regifted? That took some strength.

We have tried with our kids to instill the practices of thank you notes, or at the very least, thank you emails after Christmas, birthdays, or other acts of kindness.

And these acts of thankfulness are important. But what if there’s more?

What if true gratitude went beyond the words “thank you” and rather was posture of thankfulness that was in everything we do?

What I’ve learned since being a young newlywed is that gratitude is something that I must cultivate, really and truly practice for it to make a difference in my life and the lives of those around me. It must be personal and transformative.

In the Gospel text for this week, we read the story of Jesus healing ten lepers while he is on his way from Samaria to Galilee.

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17: 11-19 NRSV

What we can learn from this Samaritan leper is not just his obedient thankfulness, but rather how we might cultivate our own posture and lives of thankfulness.

As one pastor writes, the leper’s response to Jesus’ healing was to:

“See, return, praise, worship, give thanks, get up, and go.”

From the leper’s response, we have a sort of map of how we might create lives of gratitude.

This week, try this practice below:

See: What is God doing in your life?

Return: Respond to God for his presence and action

Praise: Give praises to God for his faithfulness

Give thanks: offer gratitude to God

Get up: Raise your head from your own circumstance

Go: Live in ways that tell of God’s healing mercy

Like the leper in Luke’s gospel, may we find that our lives of gratitude produce healing.

And may we find that in our lives and in our work, gratitude indeed changes everything.

With you on the journey,

Amy