THE REASON FOR GRATITUDE IN CHRISTIAN’S LIFE| HOW GRATITUDE DEVELOPS OUR FAITH
THE REASON FOR GRATITUDE IN CHRISTIAN’S LIFE
INTRODUCTION
Gratitude is one of the most important
moral principles every Christian must have in his or her character. In our
spiritual life, we need gratitude to be more close to God. Gratitude simply
means being thankful and accepting what we are given with appreciation.
However, being grateful have a deep meaning than saying a simple thank you. It
is much more of recognizing God’s goodness, mercy and love in our daily lives.
In a life we live in, things are not as easy as we think. We face many
problems, people disappoints us, and we lose many things that makes us
sometimes to be ungrateful. Sometimes, the problems we face make us forget
about God’s goodness and we often forget to be grateful. However, the Bible
teaches to be grateful, whether we are living in good times or bad times. The
Bible teaches us that when we are still breathing is a big sign to be grateful
because not everyone gets that. As Believers, we are encouraged to give thanks
to God in every circumstances. This teaches us not to be thankful only in good
times or when we are feeling comfortable. It teaches to be grateful in any
situation. Being grateful means trusting that God is still working even if it
seems like we are alone in difficult moments. In the Bible the term grateful
comes more often as a big sign of faith. Thanksgiving to God is presents as
repaying God for his love and kindness.
GRATITUDE AS THANKS TO GOD’S GOODNESS
One of the main reason we give thanks to
God it is because of his goodness to our lives. The Bible shows as that
everything good comes from the Lord. In Bible, we are told to give thanks to
God because God is so good to us and his love is forever. This saying teaches us two important things.
God is good, and his love is forever. Gratitude beings for us Christians when
we believe these two important things. God is good to us because he forgives.
He never turn his back on us when we sin; he is always offer forgiveness to
those who seek him. God’s love is forever because he gave us his son to save us
from sin. Most of the days, we experience many blessings that sometimes we do
not recognize that they are blessings. We wake up in the morning with a healthy
life, healthy family, healthy relationship, opportunities, moments of peace and
many other blessings. We take them as random blessings and do not give them recognition,
as we should. Many do not get as many chances as we get. When we stop
recognizing these blessings, the act of being grateful maybe challenging. In
the Bible, we have many examples of people expressing their gratitude to God.
The songs we see in the bible were not only written in good times. Some of them
were written in hard times. Take example on Jeremiah, in his hard times, he
continued to praise the Lord. The hard times are not the stop line to stop
giving thanks to the Lord. Gratitude is not only response to good moments.
Being grateful is act of faith that recognizes God’s presence when life seems
to be hard.
GRATITUDE CHANGES THE HEART
Having the act of being grateful has the
power of changing how we think or how we feel. When we focus only on our
problems and hard times, sometimes we get discouraged and lose the motive of
moving forward. However, being grateful changes everything. It make us focus on
what we have in the moment not what we are missing. When we recognize what we
are given, we come to understand that we do not have to worry that we are
missing thing. God who gives everything to anyone does not offer hard moments
to us only. God want us to be happy but first we have to learn to be happy with
what he have already gave us. Being grateful with what we have helps to give
peace and content of what we have. In the Bible, we are encouraged to be
thankful and let the peace of Jesus flow in our hearts. This passage teaches us
of having peace. We practice the act of being thankful in our hearts we become
aware of God’s blessings and guidance in our lives. This act of awareness helps
us to reduce anxiety and helps us to ream calm in hard times. Gratitude also
protects our hearts from comparison. Sometimes, when we compare ourselves with
others, we start to wish for more and become ungrateful with what we have.
However, being grateful teaches us that person’s blessings does not depend on
other’s blessings. Others blessings does not have to be similar to our
blessings, that is why we should thankful of the blessings we have. Instead of
focusing on other’s blessings, it is better to count the blessings that God
provided us and be thankful of that.
BEING
GRATEFUL IN CHALLENGING SITUATIONS
One of the challenging stage in our
spiritual journey is remaining grateful in tough times. When life seems to be
hard and tough, being grateful becomes the last thing we think of. However, we
have seen that in the Bible that faith has no limitation. Faith continues even
when we are facing hard times. We have seen that, hard times are not the stop
lines to limit our faith or our gratefulness to the Lord. The good example of
being grateful in the Bible is Paul the Apostle. Paul faced many troubles. He
was imprisoned, he was executed and he experience many hard moments because he
was spreading the word of God. Though Paul faced all of this, he remained
grateful and always thanked God for everything. Paul knew that being grateful
is not ignoring all the issues he was facing. He understood that being grateful
is trusting God and giving him thanks even if life does not seem to be good or
pleasing. God had big purposes in our lives than the problems we face. This
teaches one important thing: To remain thankful for God’s presence in our hard
times. Gratitude in tough times evaluates our level of trust and faith. It
shows that faith is not only based on temporary situations but believing that
God is always there in all situations.
GRATITUDE IN JESUS CHRIST’S LIFE
Of the entire Bible, Jesus is the great
example of gratefulness in his life here on earth. Jesus faced multiple
rejections, he was judged, he was hated and he was often misunderstood. Even
though, he faced all of this, He remained grateful to God. Before Jesus fed
thousands of people with small amount of food, he first gave thanks to the
Lord. At the time he was having the last supper with the disciples, he gave the
thanks to the Lord before feasting. Before, he raised Lazarus from the dead; He
thanked the Lord for hearing him. These moments shows us that being grateful
was a strong way of Jesus to communicate with his father God. Jesus always
acknowledged God every time the miracles happened. He looked up and thanked God
when he revealed the truth. Jesus taught his disciples to thank God in
everything they do, he taught them to give thanks to God every time the do a
miracle. One thing that Jesus life here on earth teaches us is that gratitude
does not have to depend on only God moments. Being grateful should always flow
in our kind.
HOW
TO PRACTICE GRATITUDE IN OUR DAILY LIVES
Gratitude is not something that happens by
itself when we do not force it. Like many other spiritual habits like faith,
forgiveness, love; Gratitude grows as more we practice it and putting efforts
in it. Gratitude can develop their act of gratitude in these kind of ways:
1. Through praying: By praying, we recognize all the good things that God have done to
us. When we praying we look behind and notice all the hard times we went
through and all the moments where life felt impossible and God showed up to
guide us in these moments. By the act of praying, we get the ability of
counting our blessings and this makes us to be grateful.
2. Through reading the Bible:
In the Bible, we see many examples of grateful
people. By reading the Bible, we understand their stories and learn how to
according to how they lived their lives by being grateful to God.
3. Through practicing
gratitude in our normal living: When we show gratitude
to people who are around, we learn how to be grateful to God. We can’t be
ungrateful to people who are near to us and be grateful to God. Being thankful
to God starts by thanking those who are around us.
4. Through Counting our
blessings: By counting our day to day blessings and
reduce focus on hard times helps us to notice all of God’s way of working and
blessings and the moment we count our blessings we learn how to be grateful to
God in our lives.
As more we practice these practices, we
learn how to shape our hearts and learn how to be thankful of God in our lives.
HOW GRATITUDE DEVELOPS OUR FAITH
The other important thing of being grateful
is that it strengthens our faith. When we remember all the good thing that the
Lord have done to us in the past when everything felt impossible, we develop
trust in him when we face hard times because we know well that God is not going
to abandon us. Counting past blessings helps us to have faith in God in our
hard times and ask him for guidance in those hard times. Gratitude should be
our remainder that God remains faithful no matter the hard times we might be facing.
When our testimonies of how grateful we are to God, it encourages others in the
community to have faith. Witnessing how God worked in one’s life can encourage
the other to have faith and develop hope that God is capable to do something in
their hard times. In this way, gratitude does not strengthen the individual
faith but it can also strengthen the faith of the community. Gratitude turns
anxiety to peace by the power of the prayer. Gratitude strengthens our
relationship with God. As Jesus connected with God by being grateful, that is
how when we develop a strong relationship with God when we become grateful of
what he does in our lives and this teaches to depend on him rather than
depending on ourselves. Being gratitude helps us to develop our faith for God
in future. As more we become grateful to God, we develop our faith in him by
putting our future in his hands and seeking his guidance. Practicing gratitude
by noting all the good things that God have done to us can help us to transform
our lives in the journey of following God’s purpose.
CONCLUSION
Gratitude have a deep meaning than a just
polite thank you. In the spiritual journey, gratitude is one of the moral
principle that shows our relationship with God and how we fulfill our purposes.
The Bible teaches that being grateful should be our normal activity not basing
on the current situation we are living in. We do not have to be grateful only
in good times and when the bad times comes, we become ungrateful. Whether there
is joy or pain, we are encouraged to recognize God’s goodness in our lives. Being
thankful in our hard times does not teach us to ignore our hard times. Instead
of ignoring our hard times, we can remember in the past what God done in lives
and count those blessings to give us faith to believe that God is still working
even if it is taking a time. Gratitude transforms the heart by moving our
attention from problems to blessings. This brings peace in our hearts and make
us develop hope for the future. Through prayers, reading the Bible, counting
our past blessings we develop the practice of thanking God for his goodness.
When we choose gratitude, we acknowledge that all good things comes from the
Lord. We understand that all the blessings we have in our lives are big things
and this makes us learn about how God loves us and care for us regardless of
the season. By this way, gratitude becomes our moral not just a random thing we
do because we were told to do it.
Written by Heritier Cyuzuzo
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