One tool in the arsenal of skills used to combat mental illness is the practice of “gratitude.” What is this? And how are Christians in a better position to use it?
You will find “gratitude” as a topic in just about any text on cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavioral therapy. You can download “gratitude diagrams” from the internet (highly recommended) and learn how to keep a gratitude journal. I keep a daily journal, and gratitude plays a central role in what I write. I will often insert “TYL!” or “Thank You Lord!” as I think back to all the ways I have been blessed.
So what is gratitude? And how can we use it? I would define gratitude as an attitude of thankfulness for the good things in our lives. As such, anyone can practice gratitude. You don’t have to be a Christian. One can cultivate a perspective of thankfulness in his or her life without reference to a “higher power.”
So how does gratitude work? First of all, it can be a powerful distraction agent. I find that when I am focusing on gratitude, I can’t simultaneously be ruminating on all those “bad” things. For me, it’s all those anxious thoughts, whether from the past or looking to the uncertain future. I ruminate. It takes effort, but once I pull myself away from my cyclonic obsessions to do some gratitude, I find a calm can begin to prevail. I find I can’t ruminate when I instead concentrate on my blessings.
Second, gratitude takes determination. I need to stop whatever else I might be doing to concentrate on being thankful. I need to work at it, to exercise my “gratitude muscles.” I do this in several ways. Try this one on for size. Stop where you are right now, sit, and make a list of things in plain sight for which you are grateful. Include yourself, your body (health), even what you are wearing as things for which you are grateful. Right now, I am looking at my collection of vinyl LPs, which I thoroughly enjoy playing. I am also grateful for the nice laptop on which I am writing this. Another gratitude exercise is journaling. This practice is especially powerful when you involve multiple senses in the exercise—the feel of your pen, the sight of words appearing on the page, the sound of the words as you form them in your mind (and if possible, as you read them aloud). Still another way to practice gratitude is what I call prayer-walking. Weather permitting, I take a walk and while walking, I rehearse all the things for which I am grateful. Again, I involve as many senses as I can—I see the things in my mind, I say them aloud as they come to mind, and I listen to myself as I thank God for them. I am literally counting my blessings.
Before I close, I want to stress the difference between Christians practicing gratitude and non-Christians practicing gratitude. The difference has to do with having a personal relationship with God. How sad it is that non-Christians can only be thankful FOR their blessings, whereas Christians can be both thankful FOR their blessings and thankful TO someone, or rather Someone, for their blessings.
I close with some lyrics from the song, “Counting My Blessings,” by Seph Schlueter:
One, two, three
Up to infinity
I’d run out of numbers
Before I could thank You for everything
God, I’m still counting my blessings
All that You’ve done in my life
Father on this side of heaven
I know that I’ll run out of time
But I will keep counting my blessings
Knowing I can’t count that high
I can’t count that high either, and neither can you. But give it a try!
Blessings!
The Christian Bipole
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