Cultivating a Heart of Thanksgiving

In 1 Thess. 5:18, Paul urges the church to “give thanks in all things.” I’ve read this verse countless times. I know that in the hurtful things, the hard things, and the can’t-keep-it-together things, my response must be one of gratitude. But sometimes, the distance between my head and my heart seems endlessly long. How do I give thanks for something I am not thankful for?

Have you ever felt this way? How can you cultivate a heart of thanksgiving during illness, following the loss of a child, or through life’s numerous trials and difficulties when it seems as though those painful circumstances require every ounce of our strength just to keep one foot in front of the other?

“For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”
-2 Corinthians 4:15 (emphasis mine)

Grace. God’s grace. What a gift! It is by grace and through grace that we cultivate an eternal perspective. Oh, I am in such constant need of grace—grace that reveals that every breath is a battle between gratitude and grumbling, grace that awakens my heart to recognize God’s loving hand in every circumstance, grace that turns me away from complaint and towards a posture of praise.

A grateful heart sees life not as a series of unfortunate events, but rather as a myriad of moments touched by grace. The extraordinary works of God are magnified through the lens of gratitude. When there is an intentional pause in the busyness of my life to shout—or sometimes whisper—thanks to God, there can be an incredible enlightenment to the far-reaching, never-changing love of God always at work in me.

The ungrateful heart, on the other hand, sees very little of His great love. It is never content. Instead, it contrives a version of the present that is so clouded by pain and hurt and messiness that it no longer recognizes the joy and hope that shines in and through and despite of the heartache and weariness. Or it causes us to create a skewed version of the past—built on the foundation of selective memory—so that it longs for the return of a season that never really existed.

Ingratitude is a disease that day by painful day syphons the life right out of us until we are just shadows of what we were created to be. Oh, how the enemy of our souls delights in swallowing us in ingratitude!

Ingratitude deflates and defeats us.
Ingratitude robs us of joyful living.
Ingratitude overcomes us until it seems to shut out any trace of hope.

I don’t want to live like that. I want to adopt the mindset of gratitude. Why? Because gratitude gives birth to joy.

“Give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18

We were made to respond to every circumstance in grateful worship to God. I must allow God to tear the discontent apart, and refashion my heart according to His Word as only His steady, loving, Potter’s hands can. And when we choose to respond to every circumstance with gratitude we are living out our purpose—and all the broken fragments of our lives find their place in the beautiful mosaic that is witness to His great goodness. This is His will for our lives: to bring Him glory! Can there be any greater joy than this?

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Ashlee is the Editorial Coordinator for Hope Mommies and author of I AM (Hope Mommies, 2017) and Identity (Hope Mommies, 2018). She and her husband, Jesse, live in Milwaukee with their children—five on earth and two in heaven.

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