3 Ways Gratitude Gets Down to the Heart of the Matter
If ever there was a year to cause us to lose heart, 2020 ranks pretty high, I would guess, for a lot of people. Where is God is the midst of a world-wide pandemic? is not the question we expected to soon be asking the first couple months of the year. Life was still normal. But by the time our new year’s resolutions began to hit the floor like crumbled paper, we stopped worrying about the petty stuff like the lbs. we intention yearly to lose. 2020 became a year of a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. Fear closed doors and shuttered hearts and loneliness hung heavy and cold.
I remember how much of a lifeline worship music was for me the first weeks of the pandemic. Something transcendent happens when we turn our gaze to God and pour out our gratitude to Him, and this is what worship songs invite us to do. To surrender—our thoughts, our worries, our fears, our self-focused everything. To not let these things cloud our vision. To direct our gaze, our delight, our expectation—on Him.
Worship bids us look to God, who makes all the wrong things right—perhaps not in our timing, but in the best timing. And when we offer Him our thanks because of who He is, even when we can’t make sense of all that surrounds us, we can more easily see how He is still good in the middle of the messy.
A gratitude challenge
On November 1st we began a gratitude challenge to dig into the deep-beneath things that prevent us from living into our identity and mission as members of God’s family. It’s called the #uncommonnormalgratitude2020 challenge. If you aren’t participating yet, I invite you to join in. Check last week’s blog post or episode 35 on the podcast for all the details. There is also a Facebook group you’re invited to join so you can connect with and be encouraged by others going through the gratitude challenge. If you need the prompts for the gratitude challenge, you can save the below graphic to your device.
The past couple days and through the next week we are focusing on attributes of God because it’s hard to live with a heart open to our neighbors if it’s closed off to God. Gratitude intwines so surely with missional living because when we give God access to our heart and life, giving our neighbors access to know us and do life with us becomes a natural overflow.
In the middle of the still-messy of 2020, I need gratitude to speak to the heart of what’s the matter on the inside of me and gently align my thinking with what is true. I need gratitude to open my eyes so I can see God more clearly. I need a deepened awareness of who God is so I can more easily see who I am in light of who He is.
Perhaps you do as well.
And perhaps, as we journey through the gratitude challenge together, we will discover how gratitude grows gratitude—the more we give thanks the more we see to be thankful for.
Gratitude helps us identify the deep-beneath things that either hold us back or set us free. We can see where our focus and priorities and perspective have gone awry, and we can see how drawing close to God produces healing and calm on the inside of us, no matter the storm all around us.
Gratitude opens ours eyes to see God more clearly
I’ve realized afresh in 2020 that the more my eyes turn inwards, the more I lose sight of God. In the midst of my asking why? a practice of gratitude shows me who—who is yet faithful, who is yet glorious, who is yet in control, who is yet tender towards me, who is yet holding my heart.
When I focus only on what I can see right in front of me, I can’t see past those things. I can’t see God past those things. And when I can’t see God as good, constant, present, my heart constricts. I can’t love well with a small heart.
Has your focus, too, been on what’s right in front of you? The things we wish we could change but can’t? The lack, the loud, the lamentable? The things that deplete hope?
We can’t erase the hard from 2020, but we do have choice in what we walk away from it having learned. Perspective is everything, the mantra goes—and it holds some truth. Perspective affects how large we see—how large our hearts grow—yet perspective is merely the gateway inviting us to see Who truly is everything.
I’ve learned from Ann Voskamp to count the often overlooked things as gifts—to list numbered gratitudes. I’ve rounded 4000 offerings of thanks, penned by hand in my journal. As the pages fill, I’ve realized how much more easily I am aware of God’s presence, His goodness, His pursuit of my heart. He is so much more often on my mind now than before I started a practice of gratitude.
“Count blessings and discover Who can be counted on,” Ann writes, and I invite you to join me in cultivating a practice of gratitude so you can discover for yourself how it increases your awareness of God.
Gratitude helps us see who we really are
Too easily loving our neighbors can become a long list of to-do’s. We serve and give and volunteer, but it’s merely a task. Lacking is the joy, the mutual, life-giving connections, and the freedom to live on mission because we get to not because we have to.
“Your actions do not define who you are. God defines you, your value and identity,” wrote Caesar Kalinowski in his book Bigger Gospel. The key here is know who God is because it’s hard to know who we truly are if we don’t know who He is—it’s hard to believe we are who He says we are if we don’t first know what is true of God. We can’t know our identity and mission apart from God because at the root of both is who He is.
We were created to look like Him and think like Him and live like Him—to have as our guiding principle to love God and love people. But unless we know who we are imitating, we won’t start to look like Him. Likewise, we can’t see how we matter when God doesn’t matter all that much to us.
Gratitude grows more gratitude.
Gratitude takes us ever deeper because when we begin to practice gratitude, we start finding things to be grateful for everywhere we look. Choose to see God as a gift and discover how much easier it becomes to see how there is gift too in the other things.
When we direct our attention to God, the things that block Him from our sight diminish. We see more clearly and we see God more fully. And the more wholly we see God, the more we want to know of Him and live in Him and love through Him.
Feed an appetite and it grows—so let’s feed our appetites with more of God so He becomes what we want more than anything.
Let’s fill our vision with God—and pause to let truths about Him sink in deep in our heart.
Let’s savor what is worthy of thanks—Who is worthy of thanks.
Putting gratitude into practice
In order for gratitude to affect our lives, we have to engage. Lean in. Practice. Here are a few practical ways we can savor truths about who God is throughout this next week.
1. Read
Because Scripture is inspired by God, it reveals the heart of God. Slowly reading a passage of Scripture and pausing to let it sink in deep will grow gratitude within us.
2. Listen
I am guilty of thinking of prayer as just me talking, but no friendship would be healthy if only one were to do all the talking. Being still and leaning into listening is another great way to cause gratitude towards God to rise in our spirits.
3. Remember
As we think on attributes of God that incite our worship, let’s let our mind wander to the paths behind us. Remembering past ways that God was faithful, and good, and present, and the truest, closest friend will help us treasure how HE is still those things in the present.
4. Worship
I shared how essential worship songs were to me during the onset of the coronavirus quarantine. Perhaps you’ve discovered, too, that praising God even when we don’t feel like it clears our vision to see how worthy of praise He is.
If you would like to hear some of my favorite songs, I’ll reshare the playlist I created to refocus me during the early months of quarantine:
A prayer
Psalm 51:15-17 TPT is another in a string of verses I’ve read recently during my morning time that speaks of gratitude. Let’s end by reading it as prayer:
Lord God, unlock my heart, unlock my lips,
and I will overcome with my joyous praise!
For the source of your pleasure is not in my performance
or the sacrifices I might offer to you.
The fountain of your pleasure is found
in the sacrifice of my shattered heart before you.
You will not despise my tenderness
as I humbly bow down at your feet.
P.S. Did you know The Uncommon Normal is also a podcast? Tune in on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or Spotify.
Read FREE with Kindle Unlimited or purchase on Kindle ($3.99) or as a paperback ($5.99). Group study questions included.
