“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
~ Cicero

Tonight I met my friend Jenise for dinner, and we took some time to catch up about life over Christmas break.  After sharing about how the week blew by, and talking about what we each did, we turned to talk a little bit about the new year, and about moving forward and juggling time and interests.  We eventually settled in to talk about goals for this year.

We had talked about sharing our goals with each other prior to getting together, but Jenise was prepared, and I was impressed.  Where I had a few vague targets I wanted to try and hit out there somewhere in 2012, she had the proper goal list written down in her journal.  She had a number of specific goals spelled out that she wanted to accomplish in several different categories: spiritual, physical, financial, social/serving, and at home.

As she shared about one of her spiritual goals- to keep a gratitude journal- we detoured to talk some about a book she has been reading, 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp, a mother of six, and the wife of a pig farmer. Jenise has been inspired and encouraged by this book, and it made me pause to think again at how important gratitude is in life.  There is an interconnectedness between our practice of gratitude and our ability to experience grace in life.  “Grateful people are more happy”, Jenise points out.  “And gratitude has the power of slowing down time for us.”  When we are grateful, we are not thinking about the future, fretting about things we need to do or deal with.  Grateful thinking calms us, relaxing our bodies, helping us to simply live in the now.

Gratitude benefits us spiritually because it takes our eyes of off ourselves and our concerns, reminding us that we actually live in a world where there is good, and that Providence is at work, if we will only take time to see Him.  When we are grateful, we are trusting, and trusting- living in faith- is one of the aspirations for any spiritual discipline we practice.  When we are trusting, we can relax and be totally in the present.

It is no accident that there is a relationship between grateful people and their experience of grace in their lives.  The Greek word for “thanks”, eucharizo, literally means “good gift”.  Grateful people view life, and their experiences within it, as good gifts- presents received from Benevolence, who wishes well His benefactors.  God, whose very nature is to be graceful, is a God of giving and gifting.  He finds joy in unfurling favor on His children, but in particular, He enjoys it when His kids recognize the gifts for the giver, and offer Him thanks.  That thanks tells Him He is trusted, and that He can continue to exercise His will in our lives because He is beheld as kind, dependable, and sustaining.

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
– Psalm 100:4-5

We have a choice about how we view our circumstances and experiences.  We can either view them as obstacles, challenges and frustrations, or we receive them as gifts, all part of His grander and gracious plan for our lives. When we choose to view our lives through the lenses of gratitude, we make ourselves available to witness and to walk in the wonders of His grace.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
– I Thessalonians 5:18

Thanks, Jenise, for an enlightening dinner, and for a reminder that a grateful heart is a heart full of grace.