background on Thankfulness

Thankfulness seems to be a lost art today. Warren Wiersby illustrated this problem in his commentary on Colossians. He told about a ministerial student in Evanston, Illinois, who was part of a life-sa...

The words “gratitude” and “grace” come from the same root word, gratia in Latin and kharis in Greek, as mentioned earlier. In addition to being the name of a goddess, “grace” is a theological word, on...

Charles Fulton Oursler Sr. (1893–1952) was an American journalist, playwright, editor, and writer. Like many Southerners of means, he was cared for as a boy by a nurse who had been born into slavery. ...

Needs are not bad. If God is sovereign and the “first good” comes before sin invades the world, then why did God wait to create the woman until later? In my mind, there can be only one rationale: God ...

Let’s say I interviewed ten people, asking each the same question—“Do you trust God?”—and each answered, “Yes, I trust God,” but nine of the ten actually did not trust him. How would I find out which ...

For millennia Jews have celebrated Passover to commemorate God’s rescue of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. Passover begins with the Seder, a ritual feast. In its liturgy is the Dayenu, which me...

Mike Mason recounts how his friend Daniel Adair once said: Whenever I meet someone new, I take that person and fix him or her in my heart. To do this, I literally see that person as a star, and I ...

Epiphaneia in New Testament Greek means manifestation. An effective method of teaching the content of the faith, not often enough used, is to instruct congregations in the texts of the seasonal hym...

Given the Hebrew Bible’s merging of liturgical and social circles into a single infinite circle, it is not surprising that most of the instances of the language of gratitude in the Old Testament are i...

In this short introduction to the subject, psychologist Robert A. Emmons surveys the subject of gratitude in historical and modern research: What exactly is gratitude? The Oxford English Dictionary ...

Speaking on the essential element of gratitude as part of our faith, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once said, “We need only to know who and what we really are to break into spontaneous p...

In his book Gratitude Works, psychologist and Gratitude expert Robert Emmons begins by drawing an important connection between the practice of gratitude and memory. He also goes on to share how religi...

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the succe...

While it might seem obvious in retrospect, one of the latest discoveries in the psychology of happiness has to do with gratitude. Multiple studies have shown a positive correlation between gratitude a...

The seat of gratitude is the heart. Yet the workings of our hearts remain, in many ways, mysterious. On December 28, 2016, celebrated Hollywood actor Debbie Reynolds died at age eighty-four. The previ...

Melissa Florer-Bixler, a Mennonite pastor, told me, “One of my favorite stories from the Talmud comes from a wondering by the rabbis—why did the manna come once a day instead of once a year? They tell...

I have tried to serve God faithfully all my life. Though I have not been perfect, I have tried to passionately follow Him. And now this God whom I have been following has given me this disease because...

It’s easy to label what we consider “good things” in our lives as gifts from God and to welcome them with gratitude. But when difficult things happen, we don’t look at them as part of God’s good plan ...

Watching television news is often painful… So much conflict, so many harsh words, so many accusations and insults in the headlines. Too many people speak to others with disrespect and contempt. A grac...

To bless generally means to speak good or to do good things for another. There are many types of blessing in Scripture. The first is the blessing God communicates to people. When God blessed Abraham b...

Pilgrim. For a child growing up in America, the word Pilgrim had no religious connotations. Mainly heard in the plural, Pilgrims referred to a community of storm-defying. Black-clad English Puritans w...

Since our savior is also our Lord, we are called to follow his ways. And whenever discussions arise about what those ways look like in a church, confusion is bound to follow regarding grace and works....

I have a nagging sense that when we read the word blessed , we either feel indifferent or suspicious. Both of these responses are likely the result of the way the term is (over)used in our day-to...

The prayers in the Psalms use words of waiting, watching, listening, tasting and seeing, meditating, and resting. It’s remarkable how inefficient these actions are. They aren’t accomplishing anything....

Christians... so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater...

Cosmic ingratitude is living in the illusion that you are spiritually self-sufficient. It is taking credit for something that was a gift. It is the belief that you know best how to live, that you have...

It is an expression of the grace of God. It can be a charisma, that is, a gift of the Spirit. It is inspired by the cross of Christ. It is proportionate giving. It contributes to equality. It mu...

Blessing in the ancient world was the highest form of well-being possible for human beings. The Greeks referred to the blissful existence of the gods as “blessed.” For Israel, blessing included not ju...

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for pe...

A benediction. When all is said and done, these are the final thoughts we are left with. These are God’s words to God’s people. These are the good words of blessing God would like you to have stuck in...