Find Your Wow

[00:00:03] Welcome to the Pursuing Faith podcast, where we explore questions of faith, doubt, and life. I am your host, Dominic Done. This week, I want to talk about the practice of gratitude. The timing is good because this week is Thanksgiving,

[00:00:27] and so many of us will be gathering around tables with friends and family members and in-laws or outlaws, depending on how you look at them. And we have this holiday in America where we give thanks, and that's such a beautiful thing. Once a year, we do it.

[00:00:41] But the question I have is, what would it look like to live a life of Thanksgiving? What would it look like to practice gratitude in the average, mundane, ordinary moments of life? And this is such a vital question because the more and more I study gratitude,

[00:01:01] the more I realize, oh my goodness, it shapes everything. We'll talk about how it actually has an impact on our brains, how gratitude is good for your health, how gratitude can impact how we do relationships, and even our physical bodies are impacted by gratitude.

[00:01:18] I mean, this subject is so important. So why don't we begin with a definition? What is gratitude? Well, let's talk about first what it's not. Some people, they would look at gratitude and they see it more as a social obligation

[00:01:34] or it's something that's required of you when you receive a gift. So think, for example, of the kid who gets a present from grandma. And even if they weren't expecting a pair of socks, they're kind of obligated or expected to write that thank you card,

[00:01:47] which they do grudgingly, right? So in that case, gratitude is just a duty. It's a requirement. It's something that you're socially expected to do. Or another view of gratitude, and this is where the majority of Americans land. In fact, a recent survey was done.

[00:02:04] They found that 78% of Americans see gratitude this way, that gratitude is an emotion or a feeling. In other words, gratitude is something that happens to you when life goes your way. So if you love sports, you feel grateful when your team wins.

[00:02:23] If you love the outdoors, you feel grateful when you go camping with friends. Or if you're not into camping, you feel really grateful if there's a hotel nearby. If you're into politics, you're grateful to see people's opinions online.

[00:02:36] If you're not into politics, you're so grateful for the unfriend button. You know what I'm talking about? So in that definition of gratitude, it's purely circumstantial. If life works out the way you want it to work out, you feel grateful.

[00:02:49] And if it doesn't work out, then you don't feel grateful. But the problem with those views on gratitude is that they're actually pretty shallow, and they don't go far enough. True gratitude is more than just social obligation or an emotion or feeling.

[00:03:06] True gratitude is a posture of the soul and a way of living that recognizes and honors God as the source of all truth, beauty, and life. David Steindl Rast, he once said, Everything is a gift.

[00:03:25] The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness. Oh, I love that. Everything, he said, is a gift. In other words, gratitude isn't just an emotion we experience. It's a way to live.

[00:03:46] Gratitude is the recognition that all of life is a gift.

[00:03:51] The breath in your lungs, the heart beating in your chest, the car that you might be driving right now, the friends that you have, the wonder of nature, the laughter of family, the warmth of the sun, the joy of rest, the smell of a good cup of coffee,

[00:04:12] the spice and texture of food. We could go on. Gratitude is the lifeblood of wonder. And what would it look like to live our life in such a way where we see the wonder and beauty even in ordinary, everyday things?

[00:04:32] You know, years ago, my family and I, we used to live in Maui, Hawaii. Not a bad place to be. We were there for about eight years, and I was pastoring this little church out there.

[00:04:42] And for those of you who've ever lived in Hawaii, first of all, you know how beautiful it is. If you've ever visited, it's incredible. But what's fascinating, and I think this can happen in any place regardless of where you live, you just kind of get used to it.

[00:04:54] And when you get used to something, sometimes you aren't as grateful for it. And this really came home to me one day when on—it was a Monday.

[00:05:04] In fact, every Monday when we lived in Hawaii, I would drive my old car up this hill—actually, it was a mountain, Mount Haleakala. And there was a lavender farm there.

[00:05:15] And I would drive up this windy road past the lavender farm just a little bit, and there's this place where I'd pull off on the side of the road, and it was beautiful. You could see the entire island right in front of you.

[00:05:26] And I'd get this little portable desk that I took with me in the trunk of my car, pull it out. I'd put out my laptop and a stack of books, and it was there.

[00:05:35] It was my tradition every single Monday looking out over the view of the island, and I would write my message. Not a bad place to have an office. I miss that office so bad. But I remember how you just kind of get used to it, right?

[00:05:51] You get used to where you're at. You get used to the things that you have. You get used to all the blessings in your life. And one day I'm out there studying, and I hear a group of tourists nearby.

[00:06:04] And they're like super loud, super dramatic, and they're like, wow! They kept saying, wow! Wow! Wow! In a really loud voice. I'm like, what are they saying wow at? Is it like some exotic animal that maybe I've missed or is there a rainbow somewhere? And I'm looking everywhere.

[00:06:20] Why do they keep saying wow? And then I realized they were saying wow at Maui. They had the exact same view that I had week in and week out, and they get up there, and they couldn't stop saying wow. And I had lost that sense of wow.

[00:06:40] I had been going up there for weeks and kind of lost that sense of gratitude. You see, gratitude is the ability to say wow even in the ordinary everyday moments of life. Is there something right now that you can say wow at?

[00:06:59] Is there something right now, even as you listen to this, you're driving, you're doing the dishes, you're working out of the gym. Is there something that you can just pause and say, wow, thank you God for that. Thank you for your provision. Thank you for that open door.

[00:07:15] Thank you for my health. Thank you for my family. Thank you for that friend. Thank you for this place I live in. Thank you for my job. Thank you for that answer prayer.

[00:07:28] Is there something in your life, and you know what, for every one of us, there is at least one thing that we can give thanks for. Right now, can you say wow for what God has done?

[00:07:41] And when we say wow, when we give thanks, what we're actually doing is waging war against selfishness and entitlement. Right? Like you can't be grateful for something if you believe you're entitled to it.

[00:07:54] But when you're grateful for who God is and what he's done, it like births this humility in your heart. It pushes back on that sense of entitlement that so often begins to creep on our soul. The German philosopher Friedrich Schlaumacher, how's that for a last name?

[00:08:14] I know I'm butchering it, Schlaumacher. He said gratitude is quote absolute dependence. Oh, I love that. Gratitude is the awareness that you've been the recipient of grace. Now think about this for a few moments. The relationship between gratitude and grace.

[00:08:34] Did you know that the word gratitude comes from this old Latin word, gratia, which means thanks, favor or goodwill, which also comes from the Greek word keres, and keres can be translated as grace. What is grace? It's you're receiving something that you didn't earn or deserve.

[00:08:56] In Greek mythology, Keres was the Greek goddess who is known to be an indiscriminate giver, bestowing gifts of love and beauty and joy and laughter and song on her subjects. And so the ancient Greeks, they called this keres. It's grace.

[00:09:12] When you receive a gift, you have this sense of gratitude. This is why in the New Testament, the word keres, it's found all over the place. In fact, someone actually did the math who had a lot of time on their hands. Evidently, they found this word over 150 times.

[00:09:28] Keres, grace, unlimited, no strings attached, favor of God. Keres, grace. Did you know that keres is the root word for Eucharist? Eucharist is what is known as communion. Think about Jesus when he sat around a table with his friends and his enemies too.

[00:09:52] Judas was there in the room who was about to betray him. Even Peter, who was about to deny him. And Jesus sat at a table with friends. In this moment, we call the Eucharist. He took bread and he broke it.

[00:10:05] He took a cup and he said, this cup is my blood poured out for you. This bread is my body that's broken for you. Take it. Receive it. What's happening in that moment? They're literally receiving grace. Eucharist. It's this moment of giving and receiving, of grace and gratitude.

[00:10:28] Or think of Psalm 23 when David said, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup. It overflows. Even as Jesus sat at a table with enemies, David is like, I am sitting at a table with enemies.

[00:10:49] Sometimes Thanksgiving can feel that way. For some people, you look around the table and you're like, there's some enemies here and some weird people. My uncle's kind of strange or whatever.

[00:11:00] But even in that moment, David says, even though there's enemies sitting here at this same table, my cup still overflows. Man, how I would love to come to a place in life where even if I feel I'm sitting at a table with enemies,

[00:11:18] even if life is hard, to experience that sense of wonder and wow. What David called the overflowing cup. A posture of gratitude in all seasons of life. Have you ever gone through a time in life where you just felt that sense of the overflowing cup?

[00:11:41] Have you ever been in a moment in life where you just can't help but give thanks? We've all been there. Maybe it's when you first fell in love. You're like, oh, your heart is just brimming with all these emotions and wonder and joy.

[00:11:54] Or maybe it's when you fell out of love and you realize that you've been dating the wrong person all along. You're like, God, thank you for sparing me. Or maybe you got married and you saw your wife walking down the aisle.

[00:12:07] Or you held in your arms your child for the very first time. Or maybe you experienced that sense of gratitude when you were like an inch away from disaster. It was like you almost got in a car accident.

[00:12:20] Or maybe you were on one of those really rough flights. I was actually on one of those a couple years ago. And I'll never forget when the plane landed, it was such a bumpy flight. When the plane landed, everyone on board just burst into applause.

[00:12:35] The person sitting next to me was like, thank you, God. Thank you, God. It was like a worship service right there on this United flight. And everyone just had this sense of gratitude. It was the overflowing cup.

[00:12:47] Isn't it interesting how hard times and you go through it can actually birth in us gratitude? And it's amazing how spiritual we can be when the seatbelt sign comes on. So we've all had those sense of feeling gratitude.

[00:13:02] But the question I want to ask is what would it look like to live in a place of gratitude? To see all of life as a gift. To say wow at even ordinary things. The overflowing cup. How do we begin to step into that?

[00:13:21] And again, as I shared earlier, this is something I'm trying to figure out. But a few thoughts here on what is helping me in the process. I think gratitude begins with our thought life. There's this great verse in Philippians that says, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever

[00:13:40] is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. I think Paul is tapping into where gratitude begins. It begins with our thought life.

[00:13:58] Have you noticed that what you think about actually kind of shapes your day? If you wake up and you just feel grumpy and down and you need another cup of coffee and you're kind of angry at everyone, as your mind begins to be filled with those negative,

[00:14:12] destructive, cynical, toxic thoughts, it makes you more grumpy. But the flip side is true. When we choose gratitude, when we choose even though it's a rough day, even though there's some challenges ahead, when we take that moment to give thanks for something, anything, it

[00:14:31] actually begins to reverse that sense of despair. In fact, the National Institute of Health, they put out this study not too long ago. Check this out. They discovered that thinking grateful thoughts, just thinking them, releases dopamine in the brain, which reinforces positive practices and habits in your life.

[00:14:54] So even right now, you just choose to think a grateful thought. There's a hit of dopamine. It's like suddenly your brain is rewired in a very real way. There's this old Chinese proverb that says, put a green branch in your heart and the singing bird will come.

[00:15:13] So good. You choose gratitude. Okay, I don't want to be thankful right now. I'm hurting right now or struggling right now or this is a bad day, but I'm going to take a moment and put the green branch of gratitude in my mind.

[00:15:28] I'm choosing to think grateful thoughts. And that old Chinese proverb says, the singing bird will come. So it starts with our thought life, but also we can practice gratitude with our words.

[00:15:40] You know, I think of that verse in James that says, with our tongue, we give thanks to God. And with it, we can also curse human beings. So our tongue, what we say has so much power, so much potential.

[00:15:53] Like with your words, you can tear someone down and give them a really bad day. Or with your words, you can lift someone up and be in a source of encouragement for them. Your words have potential.

[00:16:06] And what you say to others and what you say about your life, it actually has a very, very real impact on your life. Genesis, God created the world through words. Our words create worlds.

[00:16:23] And when we speak words of gratitude, it actually, I think, can shape the kind of person we become. And it's not just our words. I think even something as simple as giving thanks through song or art or music or poetry,

[00:16:39] even in those moments, creative ways, giving thanks to God for the gift and wonder of life. Psalm 95 says, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.

[00:16:55] Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. I mean, something that I love to do is, you know, say I'm driving stuck in traffic, which happens all the time, just kind of waiting, you know, trying to get to my next appointment.

[00:17:09] And I have a choice. I can either get really grumpy and frustrated or I can say, you know what? I'm going to practice gratitude in this moment. Open Spotify, put on a Hillsong album or something and just start singing. Just start worshiping.

[00:17:24] Just start to give thanks like something happens. That's what David said in the book of Psalms. He said, bless the Lord, oh my soul. Soul, why are you cast down within me? Why, why are you defeated? I will yet praise Him.

[00:18:05] Something happens when we choose to give thanks, whether it's our song, our words, our thoughts, our prayers even. First Thessalonians says rejoice always pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you. You know, some of us, maybe you're in a season right now.

[00:18:30] You're like, what is God's will for me? Well, here it is in everything. Give thanks. This is God's will for you. First Thessalonians chapter five.

[00:18:43] I think this is such a practical way to grow in gratitude that when we just begin to pray and thank God for what he's done, because so often, again, like this is something I'm trying to grow in.

[00:18:55] But so often my prayers are always shaped around what's going wrong or horrible in life. And so what happens is my prayers are like super dark. Things are falling apart. My prayers are the spiritual equivalent of Eeyore meets Depeche Mode or something.

[00:19:11] And maybe you can relate to that. But Paul is challenging us in Thessalonians. He's like, instead of that, try praying your gratitude. Take some time even today to thank God for the gift of life.

[00:19:26] I mean, imagine how it would change our days if our very first words in the morning were, thank you, God, for another day. And at first we may find it hard to give thanks. At first it may be difficult to practice gratitude.

[00:19:43] But I think as we begin to give words to what God is doing and has done, it's like gratitude kind of takes on a life of its own. Gratitude is exponential. When I choose to give thanks, it's like you start to notice God in the details.

[00:20:01] Sarah Breithnach, she said, gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. Gratitude, she said, bestows reverence.

[00:20:22] It's the everyday epiphanies, the subtle moments of life where you begin to discover, oh, wow, the fingerprints of God are all over the place. For some people, and I'm not very good at this, but for some people, the way they practice gratitude is through journaling.

[00:20:41] And this is just you take some paper, you get a journal, and you just start to write down what God has done for you. And maybe you're in a tough season and you're facing some challenges, but you begin to go through and you write out,

[00:20:57] okay, this is what God has done in the past. Here are some breakthroughs I've experienced. Here's some answered prayers. Here's a way that God showed up when it looked like it was impossible, what I was facing, and yet God made a way.

[00:21:12] Here's a time in my life where I experienced his presence. And you start writing down those things and something happens. You begin to realize, oh, God, you were faithful in the past.

[00:21:26] And I believe even as I write these things out, you're going to be faithful to come through in the future. Maybe if you're a writer and you just love writing in journals or maybe it's something as simple as an iPhone app.

[00:21:40] I know some people who they'll actually write down one thing a day in their little notes app, one thing a day, something that they're grateful for. And what happens is as the days go by, that list begins to accumulate. It gets longer and longer.

[00:21:55] And you can look back at that list and say, oh, look at what you've done. Look at the answers to prayer. And you read through those things and it fills your heart with wonder. God is found in rearview mirrors.

[00:22:12] And when you see his faithfulness in the past, it's going to give you hope that he's faithful in the future. Finally, I think another way that we can practice gratitude is something as simple as generosity or giving.

[00:22:25] In 2 Corinthians 9, it says, you will be generous in every way which will produce thanksgiving to God. Now that's so good. 2 Corinthians 9 links generosity with thanksgiving. And this is so counterintuitive to me because the way mine works is I think, okay, I'll be generous when I'm grateful.

[00:22:46] But God says, no, first be generous and that act of generosity will produce gratitude in you. Why? Because when I give, when we help others, when we share our time, our resources, our money, when we volunteer, whatever. That moment frees us from selfishness, materialism, greed.

[00:23:10] That moment makes us more aware of grace. So is there something in your life, some practical thing that you can apply to your life that starting today will help you grow in gratitude?

[00:23:29] Maybe it's as simple as hitting the pause button on this podcast and just taking a minute and thanking God. Maybe it's writing down some stuff. Maybe it's putting on some worship and allowing your heart to be filled with wonder.

[00:23:44] What is it in your life that you can say, yeah, here's a way that I can step forward into a life of gratitude to recapture the wonder, to live out of a place of wow. And here's the great bit.

[00:24:00] When we choose to practice gratitude, whatever that may look like for you, it actually is like not only good for your soul and helps your soul come alive in all kinds of redemptive, beautiful ways. It's actually really good for your physical body.

[00:24:14] I was reading recently this whole study done on it, and there's been a ton of studies. You can Google it. But this one scientist, his name is Robert Emmons. And he began to study the health benefits of gratitude. And I was reading through this article. It's absolutely mind-blowing.

[00:24:31] This is what he said, and I'll just read part of the list for you. He said, when we practice gratitude, it improves physical, emotional, social well-being. It increases optimism and happiness. It improves feelings of connection in times of loss or crisis. It increases our self-esteem.

[00:24:49] It heightens energy levels. It strengthens our heart, our immune system. It decreases blood pressure. It improves emotional and academic intelligence. It expands capacity for forgiveness. It decreases stress, anxiety, depression, and headaches. It increases motivation for physical fitness and self-care.

[00:25:10] And many who practice gratitude lose 5 to 10 pounds in their first week. No, I'm just kidding. I made up that last bit. But the point is, gratitude is good for you. It restores you physically, mentally, and emotionally. Gratitude restores your soul.

[00:25:31] And gratitude is a way for us to push back on the heaviness, the heartache, the mess, the complexity, and the struggles that we face in everyday life. This is something about gratitude that I'm discovering, is that it's redemptive.

[00:25:49] Gratitude, it births in us hope in the face of hopelessness. A number of years ago, I went to a memorial service for a friend. And you step into the room. We've all been there at memorial services, and it's hard, isn't it? There's tears. There's pain. There's grief.

[00:26:11] They had different people get up at this memorial service, and they're talking about this guy, what an incredible man he was. Again, there's more and more tears. And then his wife got up. You could hear a pin drop in that room as she steps onto the stage.

[00:26:27] She began to share how hard it was for her and for her family. Again, more people are crying. It was this heavy moment. But then she did something that I'll never, ever forget. She began to talk about how thankful she was for her husband.

[00:26:48] And she went through this list about what a good man he was and how thankful she was for that, how much he loved God and his family and the church that he was a part of, how thankful she was that he was such a hard worker.

[00:27:04] And she talked about how funny he was. She started to share all these different stories from his life. And something happened in that room, this intangible sense, this shift that happened from heaviness to now gratitude. It was like in the midst of the hurt and the tears,

[00:27:25] that memorial service began to turn into this beautiful celebration of life. And it hit me in that moment. It's like, oh, that is what gratitude is. You see, gratitude isn't some fake, soppy, pretending that everything's okay when it really isn't.

[00:27:48] Gratitude isn't putting on some fake mask and just speaking Christianese and praise God everything's good when inside it isn't. No, gratitude at its most raw is not the denial of brokenness. It's planting seeds of hope in the brokenness.

[00:28:07] Gratitude is the redemption of heartache in the name of hope. Gratitude says that pain and loss isn't the end of the story. And when we choose to practice gratitude, even today, with our thoughts, our words, our prayers, our generosity, writing, the arts,

[00:28:30] however you choose to practice it, it's healing, it's redemptive, and it opens the door for the presence of God to come flooding in. Ann Voskamp, she is a beautiful writer and a brilliant mind. She wrote a book called A Thousand Gifts, and it's all about gratitude.

[00:28:50] And she talks about her story and how she went through a season of incredible heartache and loss. But in that book, she said this, When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places,

[00:29:09] let joy soak into our broken skin, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world, for us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Pursuing Faith podcast. If this ministry has encouraged you in some way,

[00:29:35] would you consider leaving a review on iTunes or your favorite podcasting platform? That would help a ton in getting the word out. Also, if you want to partner with us or see what we're up to, check out our website, pursuingfaith.org.