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THANKSGIVING: A garden of gratitude


NASHVILLE (BP) — My wife and I decided to plant a garden one summer — a for-real, grow-stuff-you-can-eat garden.

We gathered seeds for tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and a few other things, we tilled the patch of soil, we repaired the critter fence around the area that had fallen into disrepair, we dug holes, planted seeds and then waited.

And waited.

Every day I would come home and ask the kids if anything had grown yet. It had not. Until one day there was the smallest, green shoot coming out of the ground. We watched it and other green shoots, being careful to water them but not too much while fighting off the weeds that would try to grow around them until they would eventually bear fruit.

From the time we began to plant until the day we ate the first tomato was around three months. Not a terribly long time in the grand scheme of things, but pretty long when you’re watching a clump of dirt every day.

Cultivation – preparing, promoting and developing the growth of someone or something — takes time. And intentionality. And effort. That’s true if you’re cultivating a garden, but it’s also true if you want to cultivate a characteristic in your life such as gratitude.

When I think of gratitude, I don’t want my life to only have brief spurts of thanksgiving; I want to actually be grateful — to live and breathe gratitude.

Thanksgiving that grows up all over my heart and soul emanates from the core of who I am. If, by the Spirit and grace of God, it can actually be cultivated in our lives, what active steps can we take toward that end? Here are three such actions:

1. Remember what you deserve.

It strikes me that the moments when I am most ungrateful are also the moments in which I feel the most entitled, that I deserve something better than the situation or circumstance in which I find myself.

But that sense of entitlement is a lie. It’s not a lie in the sense that I’m not entitled to something; it’s a lie in the sense that I often forget in our human struggle with sin what I am actually entitled to — which is separation, condemnation, eternal punishment. This is what I truly deserve. If I want to cultivate gratitude in my life, then a healthy dose of remembering what I am actually entitled to should go a long way.

2. Remember what you have.

It also strikes me that other moments when I am ungrateful stem from when I catch myself comparing myself to others. I look at the bank account or I look at the physical stature, the intelligence, the wit, the influence of another and am so caught up in my own covetousness that I simply don’t have any room to be grateful. It’s in those moments that I can reflect back on what I truly have.

A wonderful wife and children? Fulfilling vocation? Church that I love and loves me? Yes to all of those. But over and above that, I have every spiritual blessing in the heavens (Ephesians 1:3). Every single one. In Christ, God has held nothing back from me. By the virtue of His sacrifice on the cross, I am a co-heir with Jesus and my inheritance in Him has already been secured. This is what I have. Right now.

3. Remember what was paid.

And here we come to the meat of it all. For me and for you, if indeed you are a Christian, a great and terrible price has been paid. We were not brought out of darkness and into the light, rescued from our empty way of life by silver or gold. No, it was by something much more valuable. The precious blood of Jesus was shed on our behalf (1 Peter 1:18-21). Jesus was given for our sake. Only a price this high could atone for our sin so great.

The cross of Jesus — the price that was paid — is like water to the parched ground of our ungrateful hearts. We pour it on as we fix our eyes on Him and watch gratitude start to sprout up. Slowly, but steadily, we can cultivate hearts by God’s grace that are no longer entitled, no longer covetous, and fixed on the glory of the Lamb that was slain.

    About the Author

  • Michael Kelley