All this month, my Facebook feed has been filled with friends participating in 30 Days of Thanksgiving, posting each day about something for which they are thankful — their family, their friends, the goodness of God’s provision, etc. The regular practice of gratitude is an important guard against cynicism and self-righteousness and something that I endorse. Even so, it was hard for me not to laugh at the Facebook post of a friend, who recently left a PhD program in Second Temple Judaism and is currently struggling to find meaningful work:
Well I know I’m late and that I’m a novice at it, but here goes; Day 8:
“…God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” For what are you grateful for today? [1]
Gratitude as a Spiritual Discipline
Gratitude is hard. When things are going well, it’s easy to believe that we have accomplished our success entirely through our own effort and that we owe nothing to anyone else, least of which God. In his book The Beauty of God’s Holiness, my InterVarsity colleague Tom Trevethan writes of people he has known whose careers have taken off quickly or who have given themselves entirely over to someone or something else, ignoring God and, like the praying Pharisee of my friend’s joke, becoming deluded in their quest for success apart from God. [Read more…] about What Are You Thankful For? The Spiritual Discipline of Gratitude