Gratitude Kills Grumpiness

Church Family:
Most weekdays before I hop on Highway 17, I pull up the “Hampstead Traffic” page on Facebook. It is rarely uplifting—not so much because of the traffic, but because the comments are a loud reminder that the native tongue of our sinful hearts is grumbling, complaining, and whining. Scrolling that page often exposes my own struggle and, at the same time, stirs a fresh resolve to grow in gratitude instead of giving in to grumpiness. Many of you have seen up close that this is still very much a work in progress for me.

Have you ever stopped to think about how the church is meant to offer a completely different perspective to the watching world through biblical gratitude? By the power of Scripture and the Holy Spirit, natural-born grumblers can become deeply grateful people whose lives are set on an entirely new course of joy. When gratitude becomes a regular spiritual habit, it teaches us to meet each day with hope instead of exhaustion and negativity. It trains us to give thanks not only on the mountaintops but also in the dark valleys.

So what is biblical gratitude? Gratitude is a heartfelt response that rises up when God’s Spirit is at work in you, creating a steady sense of thankfulness for his unending kindness and grace. It begins as a quiet posture of the heart that then overflows in visible expressions of thanks. Gratitude is what you feel; thanksgiving is what you do.

How does this play out on an ordinary Monday? Biblical gratitude chooses to be steady and persistent, honestly naming hardships and differences yet still hunting for reasons to give thanks in everything (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Ephesians 5:20). It does not pretend life is easy, but it deliberately picks gratitude over grumbling, complaining, and whining. It looks for God’s fingerprints even in the middle of traffic jams, diagnoses, and disappointments. Gratitude is more than a knee-jerk reaction to good news; it is a way of thinking, living, and worshiping. It is a daily spiritual discipline—a practiced habit of seeing God as the giver of every good gift, which loosens our grip on our struggles and lifts our eyes to enjoy our loving God who is always good and never abandons us. This kind of gratitude slowly but surely puts grumpiness to death.

Here are three simple questions to help you practice the spiritual discipline of gratitude and thanksgiving this week:

• What are you grateful for today—specifically?
• To whom are you grateful—God, and other people in your life?
• How will you show that gratitude in concrete ways through your words and actions of thanksgiving?

See you Sunday, very grateful for you: Steve