Don’t you wish the spirit of gratitude were ingrained in you?
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and that would be nice wouldn’t it, because it’s hard to be grateful when you're looking into the jaws of mind-bending pain. Or a heart attack sidelines your brother or a faulty blood transfusion infects your son with hepatitis. It’s hard to feel grateful when, for the umpteenth time, you’ve changed the diapers on your twelve-year-old who is developmentally disabled. It’s not easy to muster a thankful spirit when you hold onto marriage vows despite a cold shoulder and an empty bed. Or when you have to put off vacation for another year and keep sticking to a tight budget. You look at other Christians who seem to be able to smile in the midst of great hardship, and you wonder, What are they so thankful about? Where do they get the strength?! How can they have such a grateful spirit?!
The fact is, humans are naturally inclined toward ingratitude; we compare our lot in life with others and either admire them from a distance, or burn with envy. Or we miss the job promotion and collapse in discouragement. Or we feel overwhelmed with home duties and end up complaining under our breath. In all the years I’ve lived in this wheelchair, I have observed that, when hit with hardships, many people choose to either resign themselves to the problem, or give up and submit to it.
You know what that looks like. People who resign themselves to their problems do so usually with kind of a submerged rebellion. They shelve their hopes and like a horse under a heavy harness, they stoically ‘pull the plow’ of dreary, daily routines—but we are not animals. It grieves God to see his children live in resignation. Then again, you don’t want to submit yourself to your problems, either; when people do that, they have yielded control to their circumstances, not to God. Suffering then becomes the main object and they cave in under the pressure, hoping that they can simply ‘get by’, get along, and not make waves. It grieves God when Christians make their problems the focus, rather than Christ.
To submit or resolve or resign yourself to a hard life can create a breeding ground for bitterness. Hebrews chapter 12 cautions us about this when it warns, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Oh, friend, when we allow bitterness to take root in your life, you close ourselves off from the grace of God. A bitter person who is resolved to his problems poisons not only his life, but the lives of others.
There is a better way. First Thessalonians chapter 5 tells us in everything to give thanks. Okay, so you don’t feel thankful, but you’re not supposed to: thanking God has nothing to do with a thankful spirit. One is an act of faith; the other is an emotion. And if you don’t know where to start, do what I did: start small. Thank God for small things, little blessings, tiny encouragements; it’s what I did when I was first injured. I may not have been thankful for a life of total paralysis, but I could at least give thanks that I was sitting up in a wheelchair, not laying in bed; that my family was supportive; that I could at least move my arms a little bit. And the more I gave thanks, slowly—ever so slowly—I became thankful. I wrote about this and more in a wonderful booklet called A Thankful Heart in a World of Hurt. So please go to my radio page today at joniandfriends.org and ask for your free copy; we’ll try our best to get it to you in time for you to perhaps read it around the Thanksgiving table next week. The insights are that helpful. Read all about it at joniandfriends.org.
© Joni and Friends, 2013
Compliments of Joni and Friends
PO Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376