The Powers of Gratitude

Thankfulness empowers your heart and gives it spiritual resilience. Thankfulness also indicates the condition of your heart – its presence revealing godliness, and its lack revealing sin, selfishness, and a wretched spiritual and intellectual blindness.  To see those facts in action, consider the Israelites as they wandered through the desert after escaping Egypt under the leadership of Moses. God was providing them manna to eat each morning. All the Israelites had to do was gather it up and use it. But this was not enough for their selfish appetites, so they began to crave meat and to complain, saying, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic (Numbers 11:4-6).” This grumbling was evidence of their lack of trust in the goodness of God. It also revealed a profound rejection of God’s provision, and this, in turn, indicated a conspicuous distance from him in their hearts and minds. Their hearts were not with God, or in where he was taking them. Instead, their hearts were in the pleasures of their mouths, their bellies, and their comforts. Who among us has never been in that place? Most interestingly, it was an indication of spiritual and intellectual blindness. All of those good foods that they received in Egypt did, in fact, cost them something. They could not see that it had cost them their freedom and shackled them to oppressive authorities who had no respect for their culture, their God, or their dignity as God’s chosen people. Although they clearly knew who God was and saw some of the most tangible and strongest evidence of him, they no longer glorified him or gave thanks to him, their hearts became darkened, and their thinking became foolish (Romans 1:21).  Regular expressions of thankfulness to God for the bounties he has given you help to guard against distancing yourself from the goodness and presence of God. Such expressions also galvanize your faith in his provision and keep your thinking positive and clear.

But gratitude does much more than guard your heart and mind from drift. It empowers them to serve God and to face the challenges inherent in the human condition. Notice that Paul tells the Philippians that if they petition God with respect and thankfulness that they will be overcome by an incomprehensible peace that will protect their hearts and minds and that will restrain their anxiety (Philippians 4:6-7). 

This kind of power liberates you from fear and emboldens you to storm the gates of Hell, and to crush the heads of serpents – even when you lack luxuries and comforts.  It is, in part, thankfulness that energized Paul to say he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him (Philippians 4:11-13). That strength came from a realization that he could be content in every circumstance – whether facing plenty, or hunger, or abundance, or need. That contentment is a thankfulness in the basic provision of God. 

Now, take an inventory of your life today, to see what God has freely and regularly given you since birth. Take special care to recognize when he has given you something that you know you didn’t deserve. Then develop a daily mindset of thankfulness and ask God to give you each day your daily bread so that you can be spiritually rooted in Christ, established in the faith, and your heart abounding in close relationship to your Father in Heaven (Colossians 2:6-7).