Growing in love and gratitude.
Do you ever wish that you were a more loving person? Do you ever struggle with a cold heart? Do fears and anxieties ever close in and press upon you? Do you ever wish you could have deep joy irrespective of the circumstances?
Well there is an answer and the answer is not ‘try harder’. There is something we can do to cooperate with God’s spirit so that He will grow in us love for Him and love for others and so that we will have that deep sense of joy no matter what is happening to us.
That was the case with Ann. Ann had a really sad life. Her first memory, at age 4, was seeing her eighteen month old sister hit and killed right in front of her by a delivery truck to her parents’ farm. That’s how life started for her. And then her mother, who from a short distance had helplessly witnessed the tragedy, her grief-stricken mother was taken away to a psychiatric hospital and spent a long time away from Ann during Ann’s growing years. And as Ann grew up, her family having firmly shut the door on God’s grace, life became so scary, it seemed to close in around her and she was eventually a prisoner in her own home. She suffered from panic attacks, she was diagnosed with agoraphobia and the emotional pain in her heart was just so bad that she tried to relieve it by using shards of glass to slash her flesh – to try to make the physical pain absorb and take away the emotional pain.
Ann, in her own words, says, “My life was a mess”.
Grown-up Ann spurned a university scholarship and potential degree, married a farmer instead and she is the mother of six children. One day she was sitting at her computer when she received an email from a friend of hers who said, “Ann, here’s a dare, here’s a challenge: Can you name a thousand things that you love”? It was Christmas time and Ann thought “Look the last thing I need at the moment is another list. I’ve got this long list of things I need to do in preparation for Christmas. I don’t want and I don’t have time to list a thousand things that I love.”
But the challenge preyed on Ann’s mind and she found herself looking for things that she loved and she started to compose a list. Number One was morning shadows on old timber floors; Number two – jam piled high on toast; Number Three – the cry of a blue jay high in the spruce, a tree that grows in Canada where Ann lives. And gradually, as Ann composed her gratitude list, she found that her theoretical belief in God’s love matured to an increased trust in God as her list was growing.
She realized that by naming and counting life’s grace moments, the small microscopic wonders in every day, like jam on toast, by counting them it helped her to see how much God loved her. She said that thinking on God’s goodness and thanking God for her grace moments, helped her to keep her eyes on the Lord, and then, do you know what happened? As time went by God truly saved her, God dramatically healed her wounds and hurts. Ann became a very different person. She went from being a prisoner in her own home to being an international advocate with ‘Compassion’, a world-wide ministry that looks after the poor children of the world. She started travelling around the world, as an ambassador for children; she started public speaking and she wrote a book entitled “One Thousand Gifts: Dare to live fully right where you are”. And that little book became a New York Times best seller.
You can find out more about Ann by googling “One Thousand Gifts”. Her name is Ann Voskamp. She has an awesome blog called “A Holy Experience”. In my view she is an absolute inspiration. During this coming week I will email you a link so you can check her out some more – if you want to!
Ann concluded that ‘as long as ‘thanks’ is possible, ‘joy’ is possible’. Isn’t that profound – don’t we all want joy in our lives? We can have joy whenever we can have thanks. And we can have thanks all day and all night long.
Ann said that her discovery about the effect of thanks on her life came about because of a greater realization of what Jesus did. Just twelve hours before Jesus was going to be tortured on the cross, He took the bread, He gave thanks for it, He broke it and He gave it to His disciples. Ann said that by taking the bread He actually gave thanks for a gift; He recognized the bread as a gift; He recognized the bread as grace. And the original Greek word for “he gave thanks for the bread” is ‘eucharisteo’. You’ve heard about the eucharist – it’s what is celebrated when we have the bread and the wine. It comes from the word ‘grace’. Embedded in the word grace is the word ‘joy’.
So despite what was about to happen to Him, Jesus was still able to give thanks for the grace. He was able to give thanks for the gift – the bread – even though HE was the gift, HE was the bread that was to be broken.
This is Ann’s conclusion: She said that deep joy is found only at the table of thanksgiving. She said: ‘the height of our joy is dependent upon the depth of our thankfulness’. Isn’t that interesting? ‘The height of our joy is dependent upon the depth of our thankfulness’. Ann said that this grace, this thanksgiving, this joy, these three words that are bundled into that old Greek word ‘eucharisteo’ – it’s really like a three-fold cord, a strong rope that gives meaning to everything in life.
We need to live a lifestyle of thanksgiving, but I fear I can go days without thanking God for the things that are happening in my life. Albert Schweitzer said, “The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything”. He said the person who learns to give thanks for everything really knows what it means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life”.
The mystery of life is being able to give thanks for everything. Isn’t that exactly what we’ve been told to do in 1 Thessalonians 5: 18: “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”.
And isn’t that what James talks about in James 1: 2 – “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds”. James is saying ‘No matter what trouble comes your way find in it an opportunity for joy’. Trouble – an opportunity for joy?? You would think that they were polar opposites, wouldn’t you? But Ann said we can find something to be thankful for in everything that is filtered through the loving hands of God. Whatever lands on our lap we can be thankful for, and by being thankful for it, it transforms our experience of life.
C.S. Lewis says that the most fundamental thing is not what we think of God but rather what God thinks of us. He says how God thinks of us is not only more important, but is infinitely more important. That’s because love is a response. When we feel that God loves us we can’t help but respond in love to God and to others. And the more we know we are loved, the more loving our response will become.
Ann says that by giving thanks for all things we are actually naming the ways that God loves us. We are bringing them into our consciousness. She says something that I love, because I need to hear this – she says, “Life is not an emergency (but sometimes you’d think that it was by the way I go about things). And instead of missing all the grace moments, she urges, “No. Hang on. Stop. Name the grace moments. Name the jam piled high on the toast. Name the morning shadows on old timber floors. Don’t miss the grace moments because by focusing on them, they bring into your consciousness how much God loves you”.
Thanksgiving grows our love – our love for God and our love for one another. When we focus on God’s grace, He takes away our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36: 26 – “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”).
So can I ask you an all-important question: Can we, as individuals and a congregation grow together in our love for God and our love for one another, because by this, all who live around us will know that we are followers of Jesus?
At this point, I’d like you to sit back and be blessed by the vision and Ann’s narration in a short, two minute trailer that was put together to promote Ann’s book – “One Thousand Gifts: Dare to live fully right where you are”. Then after the trailer I want to conclude with a challenge. Here’s the TRAILER: http://www.aholyexperience.com/one-thousand-gifts-book/
Habits can imprison you (just ask Susie and Ann) and habits can also free you. When ‘giving thanks to God’ becomes a habit, so ‘joy in God’ becomes your life. And with the habit of keeping a gratitude list, comes the following reported benefits. You:
- Have a relative absence of stress and depression.
- Make progress towards important personal goals
- Report higher levels of determination and energy
- Feel closer in your relationships and your desire to build stronger relationships
- Increase your level of happiness — now who couldn’t use more happiness!?
Would you consider taking on your own ‘Dare Challenge’? You don’t have to compile a list of 1000 gratitude items all in one day. Three every day or 20 each week – after a year you will have over 1000 items in your gratitude journal.
What if your fear is that you couldn’t begin to compile that large a list? You have the option of free access to Ann Voskamp’s website and blog and for each day of each month of the year she provides prompts – like:
3 graces from people you love
3 gifts found in Jesus
3 gifts only seen up close
3 gifts only seen in the shadows
3 gifts found in silence etc. (Look under FREEBIES – Take the JOY DARE).
Even if you committed to listing only 3 gratitude items a week – that would be 156 praise and grace points to uplift you by the end of twelve months.
May I share the three items in my gratitude journal for today? They are:
- The pleasure of worshiping with God’s people in Nyora
- The delights of the scenic countryside I drove through to get here
- The anticipation and certainty of God’s blessing as I participate in my own ‘Dare Challenge’.
As we near the end, the words of that wonderful old hymn come to mind:
When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost
Count your many blessings name them one by one
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done!
Remember Ann’s words: ‘the height of our joy is dependent upon the depth of our thankfulness’.
Remember God’s words: 1 Thessalonians 5: 18: “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”.
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