Don’t Try Gratitude. Be Thankful.

“They forgot what God had done, and the wonders that had been shown them.” (Psalm 78:11)

“They would remember that God was their rock and the most high God their redeemer.” (Psalm 78:25)

Sometimes I hear folks mention that they are engaging in “gratitude” as a specific life practice. It’s the specific action of realizing and remembering the good things in their life and it’s something they know they should do to help them feel better about things, about themselves, about the world. In fact, this practice of gratitude can work in helping a person feel better. But then, and this is only my observation, not somebody else’s data point or collective thought: still there is this never-ending, that is to say virtually inevitable, move (slide? fall? turn around? decline?) to angst, or anxiety, or restlessness, even emptiness.

 It seems to me that using gratitude as a technique to fight the demons of listlessness or worry is helpful to a significant point. It is a strong weapon. It wins battles. Last week we took a small trip to Fort DeSoto on Mullet Key (off the coast of St. Petersburg, FL) to bike and what not. There are 12 inch mortar guns there that come to mind here. They can be aimed well and hit the target, but the wars are endless. Everything is a battle. The battles can be won, but the wars do not stop.

 Gratitude has become a popular weapon to deploy in the war against worry and all. But what will win the war?

The more I read of the Covenant God of the Bible the more this Covenant God strikes me as a Transactional Monster. Psalm 78 is full of Israel falling short or reneging on the relationship, the Covenant, the trust, and God making them pay the price. A striking thing about this breaking of the covenant is how it, the breaking, never ends. It is continuous and relentless. It’s the Law that always accuses (cf. Luther and Melanchthon).

What will stop the war? Not the remembering, gratitude, because there will always be the forgetting. Not the theologizing away the side of God that destroys the disobedient. That all is our desperate attempt at seizing control over our lives that are simply subject to the ravages of accidents, disease, demise and death.

What or who will stop the war? Paul writes in Romans that Christ is the end of the law. And there it is. Only God Godself can end this madness. And does.

 So, what happens? Gratitude ceases being a tool to employ that will make life better later once it is practiced. Gratitude becomes a gift to unwrap that brings joy exactly in that moment alone.