Choose Gratitude

Hello, friends,

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you're with family or friends--people you love and who love you. I hope you're being filled with that love and, yes, with good food, too.

I'm thinking today about one of the most important gifts that God has given humanity. Of course, when we think of what God has given us, we tend to think first of things we need: food, shelter, clothing, protection from our enemies. If we went just a little farther in that kind of thinking, I think most of us would also list soft needs like the the need to belong, the need to be respected, the need to give back to your group or community. God gives many blessings; God does great things among us. For all this, it is right to give God thanks.

I would be remiss if I didn't add a theological turn here. God not only created us and provided for us and liberated us and protected us. Then, at the right time, while we were yet sinners, God gave Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son. Jesus walked the earth and was the perfect revelation of God to us. Jesus suffered for us, died for us, was raised for us, ascended to heaven for us, sits at the right hand for us, prays for us. For all this, it is certainly right to give God thanks.

What I'm thinking about is right up there in importance with all that. God gave us humans the ability to choose how we respond to God's blessings. Having blessings from God is important. Knowing through God's own personal revelation that we have the blessings and that they are from God is important. Being able to choose to thank God is the most important gift we have from God.

THAT's not very "predestination" of me, is it? Don't get me wrong; I'm definitely a believer that God chose the people who God loves from before the foundations of the world and all that. That's another thing we can be thankful for, by the way. I also believe that it is the Holy Spirit who teaches our inward hearts all that we need for faith and sanctification. For THAT we can give thanks, too. But how profound is it that, without invalidating all that irresistible grace, God gave us the gift of being able to respond to it.

I'll share two stories from my life. First, my mother read Pollyanna, by Elanor H. Porter, to us when my sister and I were kids. Pollyanna gets a bad reputation for ignoring the bad and only ever focusing on the good in life, but that misses the real character lesson from this book. If you're naively putting on blinders to misfortune of yourself and others, then you're certainly pitiable. But Pollyanna sees clearly and shows the strength of character to be optimistic ANYWAY. God gave us the gift of being able to do THAT with our minds and personalities.

There was a time when my company hired some business consultants to get a strategic edge. The consultants identified that we were working in silos: departments who could be helping each other weren't. We had a bunch of individual heroes who tried to do it themselves and even competed with other departments for limited resources for their own projects at the expense of others. This bred a corporate culture of distrust. That's bad; there's a saying (attributed to Peter Drucker, but it probably came from Jack Welch) that "culture eats strategy for breakfast," so if our culture was bad, what could we do about it? The company started being intentional about changing the culture. But what is the opposite of distrust? Not simply trust.

The thing needed to change from distrust to trust was gratitude. There was a lot of messaging from the highest officers in the company about it. It was a part of every corporate status call. It trickled down into project meetings. They put out physical kiosks in the lobbies of all the floors of the building with chalk boards you could write messages on and stationary you could write thank-you cards with. The company created a rewards-points system: you could nominate someone for Gold-, Silver-, or Bronze-appreciation awards. When management approved the award, the employee would get points that could be spent on real things (and only SOME of it had the corporate logo). I spent my points on a book-bag that I used in seminary and still use today. I carry with me the fact that someone appreciated me. It had an effect and changed the culture and got departments working together more.

The profound thing those business consultants knew that we humans everywhere tend to forget is that we can CHOOSE gratitude. We can choose to open our eyes and be alert for things others are doing that's good. We can choose to tell them 'thank you." THAT's one of the most important gifts God has given us. We can choose to be thankful. Some would say that we should spend what free will we have to respond to God's grace with assent: by believing in God. I say that when the Holy Spirit gets through and teaches us about God's irresistible grace that we're already beyond simple belief. I think we should spend what free will we have in gratitude to God for all the great things God has done for us.

Blessings on you this Thanksgiving. May you be surrounded by God's blessings; may you be aware of all the great things God has done for you; may you choose to give God thanks.

--Chas