Thinking about Gratitude
What do you have that you did not receive? 1 Corinthians 3:7
Paul asks a blunt question; a question destined to pierce joints and marrow. Theologically, the answer is not difficult to surmise—we’ve received everything we have from God’s hand. John the Baptist captures it: “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (Jn. 3:27). However, despite possessing this knowledge, ingratitude still clings closely to those who God has adopted into his family. We limp along between opinions, expressing thanks and slumbering away in indifference. This is perhaps why Paul so frequently models gratitude to the church (Eph. 1:3-14; Phil. 1:3-11; Col. 1:3-14), and also exhorts the church to exercise it (Eph. 5:19-20; Phil. 4:4-7; Col. 3:16-17).
During sabbatical, I am taking some time to think through gratitude on a personal level. I aspire to be a person who lives before God in thanksgiving, but my performance often betrays my aspiration. So, why is that? Why does giving thanks come with such difficulty? This post—the first in a series—aims to examine the roots of ingratitude and consider what it looks like to live in gratitude as a creature of God.
In the beginning, God fashioned and formed the world as a theater of his glory, filling it with his benevolence. Within this theater, humans flourished in the knowledge that they lived, moved, and had their being in God (Acts 17:28). Everything was a gift; everything depended upon God. John Calvin, the Genevan reformer, perceptively explains that God conferred all these gifts in creation to induce us to trust, invoke, praise, and love him (Institutes I.14.22). Humanity lived in loving communion with God as his gifts within the creation directed us to him.
However, this original order fell apart. In Romans 1:21, Paul describes Adam’s revolt against God: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” The failure to give thanks was part of the idolatrous exchange in which Adam began to worship and serve created things, not the Creator (Rom. 1:25). In this exchange, Adam consumed the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—the one tree of the garden from which he was forbidden to eat (Gen. 2:16-17). This theft was not a horticultural mishap or a case of mere excess; rather, it was a rebellion. In eating the forbidden fruit, our first parents announced their desire to be independent from God—it was their grasping after the right to be the judge of good and evil, to be their own masters, to be the arbiter of right and wrong. They wanted to be like God (Gen. 3:5); they wanted to be wise unto themselves (Rom. 1:22). This was the heart of Adam’s sin: the desire to be autonomous.
So, what does the desire for autonomy have to do with ingratitude? Why does Paul mention ingratitude in his description of humanity’s primal rebellion against God?
It is critical to recognize that the human quest for autonomy necessitates ingratitude. To claim independence from God demands that we deny the fact that all we have is a gift from him. If everything is a gift, then we are dependent creatures who are beholden to someone outside of the self. This is unacceptable to those bent on being their own master. Of course, this denial forces us to disassociate from reality in God’s world. But, if we are to sustain the illusion of our independence, then we must deny our creaturely, dependent situation. This denial is what God calls ingratitude.
East of Eden, we live with this autonomous desire in our hearts. We want to be our own masters. Even though our corruption has been forgiven and mortified in Jesus, it remains within us as the sons and daughters of Adam. This means that our ingratitude—in all its various expressions—needs to be sanctified.
In sanctification, God is at work through Jesus to overcome these oppositional forces in us, restoring the original order he created. While sin has taught us to resist expressing gratitude for God’s good gifts in creation around us, the Spirit teaches us to live in thanksgiving before God, rejoicing in the good gifts he shares. And so, it is critical to attend to God’s gifts within creation—daily bread, the beauty of the natural world, fine drink, loving relationships, etc. (Ps. 104:1-36; 127:1-5; 128:1-6; 145:1-31; 147:1-20; 148:1-14; Pr. 19:14; Matt. 5:45; Acts 14:15-17; 17:24-25). We are to contemplate and consider these things; we are to offer thanks and praise God for his provisions; we are to enjoy and delight in these gifts recognizing that they direct us to God. Part of God’s work in sanctification is to give us ears to hear and eyes to see the testimony of his goodness within the theater of his glory, teaching us to recognize that he opens his hand and freely gives us everything we have.
Help me, O God, to walk in the way of gratitude. Forgive me for all the ways I don’t recognize your benevolence and for the dark reasons behind that ingratitude. Give me ears to hear and eyes to see all that you freely give through your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.