THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NEED TO BE GRATEFUL: MY RESPONSE TO STOICS WHO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A RATIONAL BASIS FOR GRATEFULNESS WITHOUT GOD

While most of us acknowledge the connection between gratefulness and psychological well-being, we differ about how to be grateful.

While it is natural and even rational to be grateful for the sun and the rain, if you are a farmer, it is equally natural and rational to be ungrateful for the tornado and the tsunami. This suggests that we are fated to be grateful when things go well and miserable when they go badly.

The same is true if we are grateful for the people in our lives. If they make us feel good and teach us valuable lessons, we are grateful. If they don’t, it is both natural and rational to not feel grateful. Therefore to practice gratefulness when there is nothing for which to be grateful is both irrational, unnatural, and not in accord with wisdom, even if it might momentarily make us feel better.

The Christian understanding is different. We have the resources to feel grateful in the worse of circumstances. Why? We are convinced that our Lord is working everything for our good. Besides, even if we experience the worst forms of victimization, we are convinced that the Lord has everything under His control, and that we will ultimately be with Him in paradise for all eternity.

“TURKEY DAY” OR THANKSGIVING?

I like turkeys, but we need to be thankful. According to Lauren Aaronson thankfulness is great for body and soul. In “Psychology Today” she writes, "Feeling thankful and expressing that thanks makes you happier and heartier." She goes even further: "Call it corny, but gratitude just may be the glue that holds society together."

Aaronson advises us to practice thankfulness: "Just jot down things that make you thankful."

However, if reality does not consent to practice, thankfulness will be short lived. Here’s what I mean. If we are elderly, infirm, terminally ill, and abandoned by all, we really don’t have much to be thankful about. Consequently, practicing thankfulness will be difficult, unless we believe in the bliss of eternal life.

The Psalmists had struggled with thankfulness. Life often became overwhelmingly painful. One Psalmist complained that, when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was the God-haters who were enjoying life and not him.

However, after he had entered the Temple, God enabled him to see the big picture, the picture that included eternity. Then the Psalmist’s tone dramatically changed

·       "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:23-26)

What can compare to this assurance! As we delight in the real thing, we also need to feel sorry for those can’t, those who continually must grasp for the insubstantial substitutes: "Just jot down things that make you thankful."  

Yes, enjoy your turkey, but even more, delight yourself in the One who has provided that ultimate menu for thanksgiving.

The Prayers of the Humanist/Atheist

 

Unitarian Minister Roger Cowan explains what prayer is to him:

• In a desperate moment, I cried out for help, and I was answered. Some years later I am still a humanist [almost synonymous with atheism] – I believe that religion is about this world, about bringing justice and mercy and the power of love into life here and now. Yet I am a humanist who prays, who begins each morning with devotional readings and a time of silence and prayer.

According to Cowan, prayer is not about communicating with a transcendent God. It is all about “this world.” Who then does his prayer touch? Himself! He explains why he prays:

I need quiet time.

I need to express my gratitude.

I need humility.

I pray because – alone- I am not enough and also I am too much.

I express gratitude for the gift of aliveness.

I assert my oneness with you and humankind and all creation.

Prayer is all about the “I.” Well, where does God fit into this equation? It depends upon what Cowan means by “God.” A life-force? A universal consciousness? All life?

I don’t know, but here is what interests me. Cowan values many of the same things that I do – prayer, humility, gratitude, justice, and mercy. All of these reach in God’s direction but then stop short. Cowan rejects God but tries to retain the things of God. However, without God, these become shabby substitutes of the real things:

PRAYER. What a joy knowing that prayer is not a mere self-edifying exercise but conversation with an omnipotent Deity who loves me and promises to never leave me. Although He does not always answer my prayers in the way that I would like, I know that He hears me.

There had been times that I was so depressed and panic-stricken that I could only understand the simplest Bible phrases, but God would reveal to me that He was there and heard me. For example, I read the phrase, “And God heard him!” Suddenly, the truth of this statement became a blast of lightening within my tormented mind, driving away all of the depression and panic. Yes, it would return, but I was now convinced that God heard me when I prayed, even if I didn’t feel this way!

Another Unitarian minister conceded about prayer, “It doesn’t matter whom I am thanking or even whether I am heard. It is enough to be grateful and to be a witness to wonder.”

When life is going well, we feel that we don’t need to know. However, for someone who is barely hanging on to life, knowing the truth is not a luxury but a necessity, as it should be!

HUMILITY. Humility is such a wonderful blessing and so needful that I will not even make a case for it, but will merely ask, “How can a humanist be truly humble?” Before I believed in God, I could not be humble. It was just too painful to face myself. In order to survive, I continuously stoked the self-esteem engines. I had to always be right. Consequently, others were wrong. Of course, this had a disastrous effect upon relationships!

It was only through the love, forgiveness, and assurances of Christ that I slowly began to confront all the ugliness I had buried. Without Christ, this confrontation would have been too devastating.

It makes me wonder how people who don’t know Christ regard humility. Is it something to merely put on, like a tux, to impress others that we are “humble?” After all, we know that conceit is a major turn-off! Does this kind of humility truly address the conceit that dwells beneath the tux?

I don’t think so! Instead, I think that we are so needful to feel that we are significant that we merely suppress the conceit. Instead, I was able to come clean and face my uglies only because I have found a greater significance in Christ.

GRATEFULNESS. We recognize that gratefulness is balm to our troubled souls, but are we merely playing the gratefulness game or do we truly have a rational basis for gratefulness? What if life hurts? What if we long for death? What if we have terminal cancer? What if we don’t have a friend in the world? Can we be grateful if we do not see any rationale for gratefulness?

One gratefulness-guru had written, “Just be grateful! Just get a notebook and write down things for which you are grateful. You might not feel grateful at the moment but afterwards you will!”

For her, gratefulness isn’t a matter of truth. Instead, gratefulness is a mental exercise, a self-manipulation. In contrast, the Christian has many things to be genuinely grateful for. We are beloved by our Savior, washed clean of any sins. Even if we are terminally ill, we have an eternity of bliss awaiting us. Therefore, gratefulness is more than a mental exercise but an embrace of our Messiah.

JUSTICE. Our lives must embody justice and goodness. When we ignore this higher calling, we languish. When we walk in love, we do much better. But to live sacrificially, we have to be convinced that we are indeed sacrificing for a higher cause, an immutable and universal truth. However, only the existence of an omniscient, good, loving, and just God can provide the basis for such a truth. Without God, we lapse into a self-, human-based moral relativism, a creation of ourselves. If we create it, it goes no higher than our culture, feelings, and thoughts. It therefore changes from culture to culture, from time to time. Who then can take it seriously, especially in the midst of life’s hardships! Who will sacrifice for a created concept? If pragmatism is the basis for our morality, then for pragmatic reasons we will also cop-out from its demands.

We value similar things, but we don’t all have an adequate foundation for them. Without this Foundation, we will hold to these ideals as long as they work, as long as they are convenient. Without it, we will be blown from one ideal and commitment to another, looking with blinded eyes for something substantial – the very One we have rejected, the only solid Foundation.

Hating Church

I am more convinced than ever that everything we need is found in Christ. Let me give you just one example. Sundays had been my hardest day. Going to church was not only dissatisfying; it was also an emotional obstacle course.

I compared it with going to a singles dance, only to watch all the young ladies chasing the other guys. It was also like going to a gourmet restaurant. The waiter would bring all of his appetizing plates to my nose before placing it down in front of someone else. Frustration! Anger – absolutely the last time!

That was my church experience. I tried many churches, hoping to be asked to teach only to see the dishes pass me by to be placed down in front of others. I was angry! What the matter with me that I was consistently passed over? Silence was the only answer I ever received. How then was I to enjoy church – the very place where I was consistently rejected?

However, in the midst of this painful set of experiences, I was granted something far better – the assured and ever-present awareness that Jesus died for me!  I now love the hymns of His mercy and the price He paid for me. The confession of sins and the accompanying assurance of forgiveness have become more valuable to me than teaching 20 classes and rejoice that my name is written in the Lamb’s book! Confidence in His recognition has become more meaningful than any human recognition. In short, I now look forward to corporate worship!

How did this slow and necessary transformation occur? Let me try to explain it. However, it might not be as easy as I would like. I can’t give you three easy transformational steps. It comes from above as do all good things. However, I think that I can put my finger on the critical element behind this change – a growing awareness of the depth of my sin and my utter hopelessness before it.

Although I knew that I was a sinner, I had minimized its depth – its extent and ugliness. Self-righteousness is the human default. When we humans elevate ourselves, we diminish the Lord and His gift of righteousness. In order to do this, we cover our sins with rationalizations – good deeds, attainments, popularity, and even money. Adam and Eve foolishly attempted to cover their sins with fig leaves.

Our coverings are no less foolish. I attempted to cover mine with positive affirmations about my surpassing value as a person. But I was paying a tremendous price for this fix. For positive affirmations to work, they must be believed. However, when we believe them, we lie to ourselves and distort the way we see reality, even the way we regard our Savior! It also takes time to root out this blindness and to clearly see ourselves (Rom. 12:3).

Self-righteousness – the belief that we are worthy - prevents us from appreciating the extent of the mercy of Christ. After all, if we are worthy, we will not highly esteem Christ’s gift. Jesus’ disciples had asked Him to increase their faith. Instead, He instructed them to regard themselves as unworthy servants (Luke 17:10). As long as we regard ourselves as worthy, we will not appreciate the fullness of Christ’s worthiness and love for us. As long as we regard ourselves as deserving, Christ will not receive the glory and honor He deserves. The higher we value ourselves, the less we will value our Savior and the less we will rejoice in Him.

What has Christ taught me? This may sound strange, but, mercifully, He taught me that I am among the worst sinners – totally unworthy of anything that is His, even a smile or a “thank you!”

Oddly, this realization, as painful as it had been, liberated me from church-angst. Before, the hymns and other forms of worship had left me feeling that I didn’t fit. In my heart, I wasn’t adoring Christ as I ought. In this vacuum, my life was more about me and less about Him. However, as I began to see my unworthiness in 3-D, I grew in gratefulness of Him. My eyes therefore turned to Him and away from the bondage to self-obsessions.

As the Apostle Paul had stated, dying to self-esteem and self-trust is a critical element of the Christian life:

• But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything [I had trusted in] a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  (Phil. 3:7-9)

Gaining Christ - our confidence in Him - is a matter of investing all of our trust in Him and not in our own pedigree or attainments. It is a matter of regarding our own “righteousness” for what it is – garbage!

Over time, this realization made a great difference in my life. I no longer have to prove myself. Instead, my entire identity and personhood are buried in Christ (Gal. 2:20). However, there are also other essentials. Professor of systematic theology, Joel Beeke, wrote:

• Obedience increases assurance… William Ames wrote, “He that doth rightly understand the promise of the covenant cannot be sure of his salvation unless he perceives in himself true faith and repentance.”

This means that we are not going to have the confidence, joy, and gratefulness that we ought unless we are devoted to the Lord. In line with this, Paul assured would-be deacons that devotion to this work (among many other forms of service) would produce “great confidence in the faith” (1 Tim. 3:13).

In short, as we grow in faith and obedience, we will also grow in gratefulness to our Lord and in joy of worship, while we decrease in our own esteem. He must grow greater!

Happiness, Life, and Faulty Substitutes

Happiness depends on many factors, most prominently, nature (genes) and nurture (early childhood experiences). However, there is a growing consensus that the way we live also profoundly affects our mental well-being.

If we live for #1 and abuse others to get what we want, we also abuse our conscience and must harden it so that it will not bite us. This alienates us from both our own humanity and others. However, if we do good to others, we reap satisfaction. One student confided that he used to go to work with an unapproachable scowl between his ears, but then he began doing little acts of kindness to lift the spirits of his co-workers. He now looks forward to going to work.

There are many examples of positive things that can elevate our mental well-being. This very obvious truth has been reaffirmed by countless studies. Researcher Christopher Peterson therefore concludes:

• Giving makes you feel good about yourself…giving puts meaning into your life. You have a sense of purpose because you matter to someone. (Time, Jan. 17, 2005)

However, there are other positive things that we can do to lift our spirits. University of California psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky lists eight “satisfaction guaranteed” practical suggestions:

1. Count your blessings.
2. Practice acts of kindness.
3. Savor life’s joys.
4. Thank a mentor.          
5. Learn to forgive.
6. Invest time and energy in friends and family.
7. Take care of your body.
8. Develop strategies for coping with stress and hardships.

Eventually, I want to evaluate all of these suggestions, but let’s start with “Count your blessings.” Lyubomirsky writes:

• One way to do this is with a “gratitude journal” in which you write down three to five things for which you are currently thankful – from mundane (your peonies are in bloom) to the magnificent (a child’s first steps). Do this once a week, say, on Sunday night. Keep it fresh by varying your entries as much as possible. (Time)

It’s undeniable that gratitude and the positive thinking that accompanies it will lift the mood. If you doubt it, just do a little thought experiment. Meditate on a painful rejection. Then meditate about someone who loves you. Different set of feelings, right?

However, we are also truth-seeking beings. It is therefore difficult to take comfort in the one person who loves you when the rest of the world rejects you. Likewise, it’s difficult to be grateful that “your peonies are in bloom” if you are terminally ill and have no visitors.

In other words, we don’t have the ability to manipulate our thought life without limit in hope of obtaining joyful feelings. Reality imposes certain constrains upon our hopes and desires.

Consequently, the “gratitude journal” might yield some immediate positive results, but if we aren’t convinced that we have something to be grateful about, the journal will fall to the wayside along with many other self-help interventions.

Instead, gratitude is a powerful force if we are convinced that there is a rational basis for gratefulness. Therefore, if we are terminally ill but are convinced that our sins are forgiven and we are going to heaven, we have a solid and unshakable basis for gratitude.

In conjunction with gratefulness, Lyubomirsky suggests “4. Thank a mentor”:

• If there’s someone whom you owe a debt of gratitude for guiding you at one of life’s crossroads, don’t wait to express your appreciation – in detail and, if possible, in person.

This can mean a lot to a “mentor,” and you will probably take great pleasure in seeing how much it might mean to him/her. However, this suggestion also has its limitations. For one thing, how many mentors can we have? Not many.

Perhaps we can stretch things a bit and include many others into this category of “mentor” or others for whom we are thankful. However, if begin to express gratefulness, when we really aren’t grateful, we will probably begin to feel like a hypocrite. After all, we would be using another person in a disingenuous way for our own emotional well-being.

Of course, we do this type of thing all the time and justify it, telling ourselves, “Well, I’m not hurting anybody. In fact, I’m making them feel good about themselves.”

This is not entirely true. When we act deceptively, we know it and undermine the very purpose of our deception – to feel better about ourselves. Besides, people aren’t such fools. They can sense our manipulations and will feel uncomfortable with them.

Instead, we must be genuine. However, there is a way to be genuine and continuously thankful at the same time. If we are convinced that we have a God who loves us and will never leave us and is working all things for our benefit, we can be genuinely grateful.

We can also be grateful for the difficult people in our lives. For one thing, as we get closer to God, our eyes open to the fact that we too are difficult people. Therefore, knowing this and the forgiveness of God, we cannot despise anyone. Rather, we can be grateful, knowing that our Lord uses even the difficult people – not just the mentor - and difficult situations to mold us into better people. Therefore, we can honestly tell our family member, “I am grateful that you are in my life. OK, it hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve learned a lot through you and trust that God has a purpose for putting us together.”

I am glad that “positive psychology” has come to embrace the very principles that are found in the Bible. However, they cannot receive the full benefit of following these principles if they are not related to the Savior. These principles are His principles and cannot be maximally applied without Him.

Similarly, a chainsaw uses great amounts of oil. I found a way to run my chainsaw on used motor oil, which didn’t cost me a cent. However, eventually my chainsaw ground to a halt. It hadn’t been designed to use used motor oil.

Sorrow, Praise and the Psalms

What do we do when our hopes and dreams fall far short of our expectations? We can rephrase this problem a little differently for the Christian: What happens when the circumstances of our lives fall far short of the promises of God, leaving between these two extremes a confusing chasm?

The Psalms can teach us a lot about this chasm and how to deal with this tension. The Psalmist often cried out about this disparity between his life and what his God had promised him. Often, he complained to God about His “failure” to bring his life into conformity with His promises. In Psalm 43, the Psalmist complained that, instead of rescuing him from his evil and God-rejecting enemies, God had “rejected” him – the righteous one – in contradiction to His promises! However, it’s important to realize that the Psalmist wasn’t merely kvetching. He began his Psalm with an expression of trust:

·        Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men. (Psalm 43:1)

Clearly, he knew that God is faithful and worthy of our cries for help, or he wouldn’t have turned to Him. Nevertheless, as the Psalmist turned to God, he was also reminded of the fact that he had a beef against Him - his feelings and life-circumstances tell him that God has “rejected” him and he was understandably angry – that must first be resolved.

How can we turn to God, when we know that we are angry with Him and think that He has been unfaithful. We intuitively know that we are being hypocritical when we put on a smile and ask God for something, while we are dissatisfied with him. We first have to lay our cards on the table in hope of resolving our issues, and we all have them!

   

·        You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? (Psalm 43:2)

In essence, he is saying that things shouldn’t be this way, even worse, that God has failed him. God had promised to be his “stronghold” – his protective shield – but instead, the Psalmist finds himself “oppressed by the enemy.”

This just shouldn’t be. It is the Psalmist who had been wronged! It is he who had placed his trust in the Lord, while the others had rejected Him!

How did the Psalmist live with this tension, this disappointment? For one thing, he was transparent before his God, telling Him just what he felt. However, he didn’t take matters into his own hands and bolt, as many of us do when we feel betrayed by God. Instead, he had the wisdom to know that, despite his grief, disappointment and anger, God was his only hope. He had nowhere else to go. He therefore had to remain teachable. He had to trust in God, but his feelings were dragging him in another direction:

·        Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. (Psalm 43:3)

Our fears and pains often close in upon us like a bear-trap, gripping our minds into ruts of obsessive thinking. We need our Lord to lift us up with His “light,” His mountain-top perspective, bringing us into a place of truth.

Our feelings don’t always shed light. Instead, they can be like back muscles in spasm at the slightest misstep. We require a divine perspective powerful enough to overshadow the gloom and doom like a bright light that dissolves the shadows. The Psalmist knew that he was suffering from emotional myopia and that he needed God’s light to help him to see beyond his gloom:

·        Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. (Psalm 43:4)

The light would restore him to sanity and also bring him back so he could see God as “my joy and my delight.” We don’t always see how our shadows blind us. Our pain causes us to focus in narrowly open ourselves and to lash out at everything else. I would guess that repeated spiritual failure had taught the Psalmist about his blindness and his utter need for God’s light.

I thank God for teaching me how foolish and blind I can be. He has stripped me of much of my self-trust. Mercifully, He has broken me so that I’d have to cry out for His light to regain a stance of praise.

While the Psalmist’s circumstances might not warrant praise, he knew that praise is the doorway into the transcendent light that can banish all the shadows of confusion and deception. Some might think that praise is a manipulation to get what we want from God. However, if praise is manipulative, it is intended to “manipulate” our feelings – our mental rut – not God:

·        Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 43:5)

The Psalmist had first issued his plea to God, but now he preaches to his own soul. In view of a millennium of God’s recorded compassion and graciousness, his soul was not acting reasonably by charging God with rejecting him, and he knew it. Consequently, we don’t need to see His deliverance before we praise Him. We can start praising Him now, anticipating His future mercy.

In actuality, the Psalmist had every reason in the world for hope and praise. Praise is not contrary to truth, although it might be contrary to our present circumstances. Instead, it is the highest expression of truth – a veritable cry of assured victory. Praise acknowledges what we believe and have always professed – that God will rescue us, despite our present pain and failures!

Our behavior must be liberated from the tyranny of the now – our feelings and mental ruts. Praise is liberating. It places our focus on the one source of hope, freeing us from fear and self-obsessions. As we praise Him, our problems often begin to melt as the morning fog.

Praise is soul-medicine. Isaiah wrote about donning “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). Praise is one of God’s gifts to us. Knowing this, the Psalmist counseled himself that the elixir of praise was the very medicine that his “downcast…soul” required.

Many who don’t receive enough sunlight get depressed. I think that the same can be said about praise – we need large doses of it - especially now as we praise the Son.