Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. —1 Thessalonians 5:18
Our first rule for a happy and fulfilled life is Gratitude, Giving Thanks. It’s also so simple that most people overlook its power in their lives and forget to be intentional about it. But as simple as it is, it doesn’t come naturally.
A lot of people wonder what the secret sauce for a happy life is, and why God doesn’t just tell us. Turns out he did, but what he said is simple, and we’re busy looking for a mystic light to shine from behind a cloud—illuminating a hidden path. We’re looking for a guru to teach us secret spiritual methods that the “average” person couldn’t possibly understand.
People have fallen into this error throughout history. We overlook the simple solutions hiding right under our noses.
When Naaman, a great army commander, got leprosy, he was horrified. It was a death sentence in the ancient world. And a painful one. But a ray of hope broke through when he learned of a great prophet in Israel. A mystic. A spiritual man. He went on a long journey to find Elisha and beg for healing. When he found Elisha, he was waiting for some powerful ceremony. Or perhaps he’d be told to climb to the highest cliff and eat the egg of a rare bird nesting in the rocks. Or at least some spell would be cast in a strange language. But Elisha told him bathe seven times in the Jordan, and he’d be healed. Then the prophet walked off, like a regular boring old guy.
The prophet was obviously wrong. It can’t be this stupidly simple. I’ve made a long journey to a great spiritual man, and he’s telling me to take a bath!?” Naaman stormed off in a rage. One of Naaman’s servants stopped him. “If the prophet had commanded you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather, then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (2 Kgs 5:13). Naaman relented. He had come all this way. Nothing to lose, he thought. He did as the prophet told him, and as Scripture says, his skin became “like the flesh of a little child” (2 Kgs 5:14).
Do you want your youth restored? Your marriage healed? Blessings to be unleashed in your life? Your mood improved? Your house happier? Do you want to get more out of your life? It’s simpler than you think: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess 5:18).
The Power of Gratitude
Gratitude is POWERFUL.
Gratitude:
• Makes it possible for you to enjoy the blessings you have.
• Strengthens relationships, because when people feel appreciated by you, they want to be around you.
• Sets you up for promotion from people above you and loyalty from people who work for you, because everyone wants to bless those who are grateful for it.
• Releases oxytocin and dopamine in the brain, the all-natural “feel-good” chemicals.
• Makes you a blessing magnet. In the words of St. Therese of Lisieux, “What most attracts God’s graces is gratitude, because if we thank him for a gift, he is touched and hastens to give us ten more, and if we thank him again with the same enthusiasm, what an incalculable multiplication of graces! I have experienced this; try it yourself and you will see! My gratitude for everything he gives me is limitless, and I prove it to him in a thousand ways.”
To the contrary, ingratitude is poison that robs you of the life you were made for.
Ingratitude:
• Blocks the blessings of almighty God.
• Keeps you from enjoying the blessings you have.
• Destroys friendships.
• Kills marriages. I’ve literally seen marriages end because one or both of the spouses let in a stream of toxic, ungrateful thoughts. (If you start looking for the flaws in your spouse instead of the gifts, trust me, you’ll find them. And look out: they’ll find the flaws in you!)
• Makes people not want to bless or promote you, because who wants to bless an ingrate?
• Ruins your mood and robs your joy.
In the words of Solanus Casey, “Be sure, if the enemy of our souls is pleased at anything in us it is ingratitude—of whatever kind. Why? Ingratitude leads to so many breaks with God and neighbor.” He also said that “gratitude is as necessary for social order and harmony as are the laws of gravity for the physical world.”
It Doesn’t Come Naturally
But gratitude, as important and simple as it is, doesn’t come naturally. We’re all-natural malcontents. None of us come into this world happy. We come into the world kicking and screaming. That’s our default. And there’s a reason for that.
Let’s blame it on the cavemen. The human brain hasn’t changed much since we wrote on cave walls. And the brain, like our other organs, didn’t form to make us happy. It formed to keep us alive. The caveman who was good at stopping and smelling the roses was probably not good at surviving. You didn’t get his genes because they were eaten by a saber-toothed tiger while he was enjoying a nice sunset and sipping a glass of whatever cavemen used to drink. It’s the one who obsessed about what might hurt him that survived long enough to pass his genes on to you.
Fast-forward forty thousand years from your great-grandpa to the tenth power who survived because he was always watching his back, and you walk through life watching your back. You’re driving through traffic. Someone cuts you off. You spend the rest of the drive looking for that guy. You might even think about him all night.
You’ve never come home after a hard day of work and traffic and said, “That was rough. And I just can’t stop thinking about that one nice guy who let me in front of him in traffic. I’m trying to focus on the kids, but all I can think of is his smiling face as he waved at me.” No. You spend the rest of the day thinking about the one jerk who cut you off. You obsess. You almost revel in your own annoyance. You only get about thirty thousand days to live. How many days have you wasted thinking about the one jerk you encountered that day?
It’s human nature, I guess.
It’s also human nature to bond together over what annoys us. How many gatherings land on a discussion about the problems in the world? How many church meetings home in on the problems with your pastor? How many connections around the watercooler at work land on complaining about the boss? We get together and “tribalize” against what bigger force might hurt us. It’s a caveman survival mechanism. Again, it’s natural.
Aren’t you tired of living in the natural? St. Paul shows us how to rise above it.
Paul’s Secret Sauce
St. Paul was an adventurer. A leader. A man who called the shots. And he was naturally drawn to all those things. When the first Christian, Stephen, was killed for his faith, his executioners laid their cloaks at the feet of Saul (Paul’s old name). He was in charge.
And he couldn’t stay put. He journeyed from place to place to find more and more Christians to persecute. H is life was spent on the road.
His conversion happened on the road to Damascus, and God met him on the move—because he was always on the move.
And, after his conversion, he applied that same adventurous spirit, previously given over to hatred, to spreading the love of Jesus Christ. Go! Go! Go! He spent his ministry ever on the road to somewhere.
Some estimates say he traveled over ten thousand miles during his public ministry. That’s almost the width of the United States four times. That’s easy if you have Southwest Airlines. With that much travel, he may have even gotten special airline status, boarded first, and enjoyed first class for most of his trips! Not so much two thousand years ago. To travel back then was to risk death every time.
This is the way he describes it:
Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Cor 11:25-27)
But you know what? I don’t think any of that bothered him much. Brushes with death put a glimmer in his eye. I think 2 Corinthians 11 was some manly bragging! He was the Navy Seal of the early Church.
I think the real struggle for this road warrior came when he was clamped in chains and had to spend two years under house arrest. Bored. No more journeys. No more death-defying experiences. No more seeing the faces he loved. No more watching the light go on in someone’s eyes as they heard the Gospel for the first time.
However, it was there that he did some of his most important work. Much of what he wrote to the world— and perhaps most importantly, much of what he wrote about joy—was from prison.
From prison, hidden from the world, cut off from a life of adventure, awaiting his beheading, he wrote, “I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content” (Phil 4:11). I’m not sure I’d take that too seriously if he had written it from a beach in Cancun. Anyone can be content in a lounge chair. He wrote that from prison. But that didn’t come naturally for Paul, just like it doesn’t come naturally for you. He had to work hard at it. And so do we.
And from prison he outlines how: through gratitude, praise, and worship.
From prison, he wrote to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil 4:4). That was a command! My mom used to tell me, “Joy is a choice, Christopher.” She was right.
Paul continues, joy dripping from his pen, “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7).
Pay attention to what he said, “in everything … with thanksgiving.” Every prayer and thought, even when we give voice to the things we need, should be covered in thanksgiving.
The Eucharist has been the center of Christian worship since day one of the Church. The word “Eucharist” means “thanks.” Is thanks at the center of your prayer? Is it at the center of your soul?
If it isn’t, you’re doing it wrong. And you’re bound to be miserable, even if you pray a lot. But if it is, even when life gets hard, you’re bound to be joyful. And more, you’re bound to be unstoppable.
You couldn’t conquer Paul, and he knew it. He wrote, “We are more than conquerors” (Rom 8:37). In other words, “Conqueror is an understatement for what we are!
Every struggle thrown at Paul was turned on its head:
• You couldn’t murder Paul, but you could make him a martyr.
• You couldn’t imprison Paul, but you could shift his ministry from traveling evangelist to writer.
• You couldn’t offend Paul, but you could give him an opportunity to forgive.
• You couldn’t starve Paul, but you could help him fast better.
• You couldn’t put Paul on trial, but you could give him a pulpit to preach from before the world’s judges.
Paul was more than a conqueror. Are you? If not, try giving thanks more.
Haiti’s Secret Sauce
I got a glimpse of the light of St. Paul’s unconquerable spirit when I went to Haiti. My interest in Haiti began when I picked up my little girl from school a few years ago. She said, “Dad, I had a miserable day.” She’s ten years old, perfectly healthy, and well-fed. She lives in a prosperous nation. How truly miserable could school have been? I wanted to give her a dose of perspective. This is probably not the healthiest thing to do, but then again, I’m not a licensed psychologist. So, I googled pictures of kids in Haiti. I wanted to show her that many kids around the world actually struggled today just to survive. All I could find were pictures of kids smiling.
I went on a mission trip to Haiti not long after that. The kids in Haiti smile more than kids in Disneyland. Not to downplay the suffering there, but when they smile, it’s more like an inner light welling up from the depths than a smile. I’ve heard the phrase “Her smile could light up a room.” That’s rarely a true statement, except in Haiti. I saw countless smiles like that.
They’ve got nothing compared with what you’ve been blessed with, but they do have a lot of gratitude. They are constantly thanking God. They are constantly thanking each other. Nothing they have is overlooked. Gratitude is the key that will unlock the smile on your face.
They bring that gratitude to church with them. When I got to preach in Haiti, I was nervous when no one showed up for my 5 p.m. presentation. I went to my friend who organized the event and asked where everyone was. He laughed and said, “5 p.m. doesn’t mean anything in a town where no one owns a watch. They’ll eventually come.” Of course, the church filled up two hours later. They were in no rush to come. But what really blew me away was how they were in no rush to leave. No one left after my talk, which was followed by a long Mass, which was followed by an hour of praise and worship, which was followed by some of the most joyous dancing I’d ever seen. Young and old became like little kids. Hands in the air. Huge smiles. Celebrating life, faith, and family. They all looked like they had just won the super lotto. And they had nothing.
When you ask a Haitian, “How are you?” the typical response is “Strong.” Gratitude leads to joy, and joy makes us strong. Haitians don’t tend to focus on what gets them down. They focus on what they have to do today and on being grateful for the things that do go well in their lives. Poverty, earthquakes, political instability, hurricanes knocking out what few crops they successfully grow, are all met by them getting up the next day and going to work again and giving thanks for what they have.
After the earthquake that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in 2010, the people gathered in the capital with drums and started beating them out loud, many of them praising God as they did so. They wanted to show the world that they could shake the earth too. They’re amazing people. They will build an amazing nation some day because of it.
Listen, I didn’t want to downplay my fourth grader’s “first-world problems”; I certainly don’t want to downplay the problems in Haiti, and I also don’t want to downplay yours. And maybe as you read this you’re thinking, “But Chris, my problems are real! Giving thanks more won’t make them go away!”
I’m sure they are real. But you know what else is real? The sun. When you go for a walk, do you stare at it? If you do, it will zap-fry your retinas. Look at the flowers instead. You can’t control what’s around you, but you can control what’s within you. You can control what you focus on and let into your heart.
The end result of Paul’s advice to give praise, written from chains, is where it focused his heart from that dark place and where it will lift ours. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8).
Many Haitians aren’t brought low by their circumstances. Are you? If so, try giving thanks more.
Anne Frank’s Secret Sauce
Before we dive into how to become more grateful, I want to hold up one more example to encourage you: Anne Frank.
Pictures of Anne have always cut me to the heart— her preteen smile, that gleam in her eye in the midst of a world going up in flames. Anne was a giant of a human being, not because she did anything momentous but because she simply stayed who she was despite the profound evil that set the stage for her brief life. That power had everything to do with where she fixed her attention—it had everything to do with gratitude.
When Anne was four years old, her family had to flee Nazi Germany for the Netherlands. When she was ten, the Nazis clamped down on the Netherlands and cut Jews off from parks, theaters, and work. At thirteen, after a failed attempt to leave for the United States, her family joined another family in a cramped attic where they hid for two years. At fifteen, the Nazis raided their Secret Annex. Her family was separated when they were sent to Auschwitz to do hard labor. She and her mother would never see her father again. She was eventually transferred to another disease-infested camp where she and her mother died of typhoid.
When she was in hiding, Anne wrote, “Think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy.” And perhaps her most famous quote, “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
She was able to find beauty in that attic. She was able to find goodness in her fellow man. Her young eyes peered through the dark night and found glimmers of light and things to be grateful for. What do you see when you look at the events of your life?
Do you see the people who hurt you? Or the news feed (which I don’t recommend looking at too often)? Or the bad roll of the dice that hurt your portfolio? Or the bully who cut you down in middle school twenty years ago? Or the parents who tried hard but didn’t love you quite the way you needed?
Or do your eyes peer through the darkness in your life to find something more? Gratitude will help you see the something more. It will help you find the beauty and goodness.
Gratitude might not change your circumstances, but it does change you. It gives you the capacity to have a gleam in your eye even if your world is going up in flames.
Anne was able to find things to delight in even when life was very hard. Are you? If not, try giving thanks more.
The Key to Enjoying Life is … You Guessed It!!
Gratitude isn’t just the key to having the unconquerable spirit of St. Paul, my heroes in Haiti, or Anne Frank; on a much simpler level, it’s also the key to enjoying your everyday life.
If you don’t have gratitude, God is wasting his blessings on you. Some of the harshest words in Scripture aren’t addressed to the murderer or adulterer but to the ungrateful—the man covered in blessings who can’t seem to enjoy them. “A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity … I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning …” (Eccl 6:3-4, NIV). Did you catch that? You’d be better off if you were born dead than if you have blessings but don’t stop and enjoy them. Ouch. That’s harsh.
But isn’t that you sometimes? Half of your daily stress comes from complaining about juggling your many blessings—your children, managing your home, scheduling time with family and friends. You wouldn’t have to do any of those things if you didn’t have money, kids, or freedom of religion.
I fall into the error of stressing over my blessings all the time! I’m still learning with you. I went paddle boarding with my family recently. I had a moment of “misery.” The AC in my car broke. I was sweating by the time I got to the lake. The pump for my inflatable paddleboard broke so I had to do it by hand. More sweat. I was cursing the universe by the time I had the board pumped up. I was a stressed-out mess. Then I stopped, took a deep breath, and reflected on my circumstances with new eyes. I was at a beautiful national park in Colorado near where I live. I actually had the money to buy a couple of paddleboards. I have healthy children whose bodies are able to paddleboard. My car AC had apparently broken, but I have a car. I began to thank God. That didn’t fix my AC or my paddleboard pump, but it did fix me.
“Every man also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and find enjoyment in his toil [note that the Scripture doesn’t overlook the fact that life has plenty of toil!]—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart” (Eccl 5:19-20).
Do you want to be occupied with joy in your heart? Give thanks.
How-To
Ideals don’t mean much unless they become practicals. I’m going to give you three practicals that will make you a grateful person, and I want you to stick to them every day. And they’re simple. But if you want your life to change for the better, you have to stick to them.
1. Count your “blessings” every morning.
Every day when I wake up, my body starts to do its job: keep Chris alive. Cortisol increases, turning on energy like a switch. Insulin kicks in, making me ready to eat. Aldosterone drops, which takes me to the toilet so I’m ready to run. Testosterone spikes, making me ready to fight every battle that might come my way the second I wake up. Caveman Chris is ready! The body is an amazing “survival machine.”
And as this chemical firework show goes off in my body, my brain kicks into overdrive, jumping into all the challenges I might face in a given day. That’s what it does. It’s a problem-solving machine. It dives into every problem, anticipates every threat, and tackles every to-do before my feet hit the floor.
Ever notice that when you wake up too early, it’s hard to get back to sleep? Every system in your caveman body is lining up to get you moving, running from the saber-toothed tiger, seeking out the next watering hole, and spearing the next squirrel to feed your family.
But your natural systems aren’t the boss of you. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). We’re more than natural creatures, driven by natural processes.
So, here’s what I do every day when I wake up, and I want you to do the same thing. When my brain first wakes up, before my eyes open, I begin to direct my thoughts away from my problems, my to-do list, the news feed, and toward my “blessings.” I take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ (see 2 Cor 10:5). I begin to give thanks. My prayer isn’t eloquent at that pre-coffee hour.
“Thank you, Lord, for the blue of the sky, the breath I just took, the work I’ll get to do, another day to serve you and others, the little feet that are already running down the hall to interrupt my prayer . . . because they won’t be doing that for long. Thank you.”
That simple act of gratitude reorients my mind from stressed to blessed, from homing in on dark things to “whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious . . .” (Phil 4:8).
And I hit the ground ready to be a joy to those around me rather than a drain.
2. Let trials “trigger” your gratitude.
Job is the oldest book of the Bible. Maybe that’s because suffering is the oldest challenge to faith mankind has ever faced. Job had what one might call a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” In a single day, he lost his sons and daughters, servants, and livestock. Then he was afflicted with bodily sores. And then all his friends started to gossip about him. There is a book’s worth of reflections we can dive into about Job and the problem of pain. Now let’s look at Job’s first response to it all.
Right at the start of the book, his response to the worst day ever was praise. “Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head [a sign of mourning], and fell upon the ground, and worshiped” (Job 1:20). He praised God for his greatness. He thanked God for his life. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). In other words, “God doesn’t owe me anything, so everything above zero, including just getting to exist, is an occasion for gratitude from a non-necessary creature such as me.” But it wasn’t just holy for Job to give thanks; it was necessary for his life to go on. You see, the Book of Job ends with countless blessings and opportunities being heaped back upon him. He wouldn’t have had the strength to rise up from the ashes and grab those blessings, or the heart to enjoy them, if he decided to close up shop in Job 1.
I met a young woman at an event recently. She appeared perfectly healthy but struggled intensely. She’d had a Job incident, and it was crushing her spirit. She had been in a car accident and suffered from a traumatic brain injury. In addition to problems concentrating and sleeping, she needed daily physical therapy for a multitude of ailments from the accident. She approached me with her mother at her side, and they both asked, “Why did God let this happen?” I’d usually respond with the theological answer to that question, about how a loving God could let people he loves suffer, and how that’s not a sign that he’s abandoned us. But I felt inspired to go a different route because I could tell that wasn’t going to help. I answered her question with the question, “Is that question helping you?”
It caught her off guard. So, I pressed further: “Seriously, what’s that doing for you to keep asking that every day? You have the struggle of daily physical therapy, and you’re going to add to that struggle by focusing on exhausting questions about the existential meaning of suffering? Stop it.”
I could see a weight lifted off her shoulders. We think we need every question answered. Our brains tell us we do. We don’t. I refocused her on her blessings. “This accident didn’t happen to you. It happened for you. Look at how compassionate this struggle has made you toward others. Look at your beautiful eyes. I can see by looking at you for thirty seconds how much love and strength you have. Look at this mom who loves you and has gotten to show you how much she supports you. So, you can’t accomplish all you thought you would, but life is about more than accomplishments and job titles. Who you are is a gift to others because of what you’ve been through. And you need to press on because other people who are struggling need to see that you can, so they know that they can too.”
A tear-filled smile spread across her face and lit up the room as I spoke to her.
What are your trials today? How are you responding? Is it with thanks?
“Triggers” are things that cause an unwilled response. Touch a hot stove and your hand automatically pulls back. Some life events can cause us to be triggered to defensiveness, anger, or fear. But you can train yourself to be triggered in particular directions.
When bad things happen—from Job-sized triggers to a mosquito bite—they usually trigger a negative response in us. But Job had trained his soul to a different kind of first response. You can too.
Every time you’re annoyed, I want to challenge you to give thanks and praise to God. When I’m in traffic, I never wave with one finger. My goal is that if you cut me off, I’ll raise all five fingers as I lift my hand in praise! The more we do this with small things, the more we’ll be like Job when (not if) the big trials come our way.
We need to get into the habit of replacing habitual whining with habitual praising. I’ve heard it said that Jesus could turn water into wine, but he can’t turn your whine into anything. And habitual gratitude, especially in the face of life’s trials, is an urgent task. If you’ve ever gone for a hike, you can see where the rain runs on a trail even when it’s dry. Little gullies are carved into the earth, and they get deeper with every rainfall, making their course inevitable. The way you think forms “gullies” in your mind. You can form gullies of whining or mountains of joy. It’s up to you.
Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed through the renewal of our minds. That’s not easy, but you can do it. You can become a grateful person. It’s never too late to change the patterns of thought you’ve established in yourself and to replace them with new patterns.
3. Say “thank you” often throughout the day.
The Jewish people have prayers of blessing and thanks for every occasion. The prayer formula begins with the words, Baruch atah Adonai, which means “Blessed are you, Lord,” and it’s often followed by “for (insert the occasion you’re giving thanks for here).”
A friend of mine studied Hebrew, and once on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land he overheard an old man recite a traditional blessing that said, “Blessed are you, Lord, God of the Universe, for holes in our bodies that open and close when they’re supposed to!” He laughed out loud and the old man looked at him and said with a grin, “Listen, when you’re my age, that will be the most passionate prayer you say!”
Everything, no matter how silly or small, is an occasion for thanks. And this is not only the case with God but with others. “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18). You need to open your mouth and say the words “thank you” many times each day.
Do it out loud right now! It only takes a second.
Doing so doesn’t just give you the habit of saying “thank you” often. It creates an interior state of gratitude—a soul energized by a constant stream of thanksgiving. Like a waterwheel that generates electricity as it’s moved round and round by a flowing stream, so is the soul when the mind perceives blessings and the mouth says “thank you” often.
During his 2015 visit to New York City, while at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Pope Francis said, “We have to ask ourselves, are we [even] capable of counting our blessings [anymore]?” If we don’t take time to count our blessings, we forget that they’re there. Thank the person behind the counter who just handed you your change. Thank a companion for his friendship. Thank your kids for letting you be their mom or dad. Thank your spouse for marrying you. Thank God for the little things every day.
Stop overlooking your daily blessings. Your friends, family, a good meal, a pretty sunset—these are the things that make us super lotto winners! Be sure to cash in with the two magic words: “thank you.”
By Chris Stefanick from Living Joy
Photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova on Unsplash
