Practicing Thankfulness by Sam Crabtree

Author:Sam Crabtree [Crabtree, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL063000/REL023000/REL012070
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2021-01-26T15:00:00+00:00

7

Thankfulness and Contentment

Robert Louis Stevenson famously wrote,

The world is so full of a number of things,

I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.1

But we’re not as happy as kings. We’re a race of complainers. Why?

Here’s one reason. Highly observant people can become critical people who then become unthankful people—complainers. Creative people are observant (and that includes those who are born again and are given eyes to see what they couldn’t see before) and can see something. They see how something could be different, better. Seeing the possibilities prompts dissatisfaction with the status quo, and complaints can start tumbling out: That government office could surely shorten their waiting lines. That outfit worn by Aunt What’s-Her-Name could have been more tasteful. That sermon could have been way better. All these observations might be true, but be on guard about becoming thankless regarding the government, the aunt, the sermon. People who can envision the most improvements can also become the most negative and critical.

Don’t let that happen to you. Thank God for your powers of observation, and ask him to help you direct them in helpful, thankful ways.

If we refuse to be grateful now, we’ll not likely be grateful if things change, because in this fallen world there will always be more room for improvement, an endless conveyor belt of things about which to complain.

Contentment versus Complaining

Instead of thinking the cup is half empty, the thankful heart is grateful that the cup is half full—and that there’s even a cup at all. The complaining heart not only sees the cup as half empty but as too small in the first place—and the stuff in the cup isn’t the stuff it wants.

The contented heart has enough. Sometimes the complaining heart has too much, and by doing without, the soul can discover appreciation for what was previously taken for granted or complained about. Solomon noted the productive benefits of deprivation: “A worker’s appetite works for him” (Prov. 16:26).

Thankfulness isn’t the only Christian virtue. It’s not the final goal of Christian endeavor. Even though we’re to be thankful for everything, including difficulties like illness, we work diligently to creatively eliminate these very problems. Christians dig wells, build clinics, and teach literacy. The contentment that breeds thankfulness is not complacency. Christians thank God for problems, but that doesn’t mean we don’t seek solutions and thank God for those solutions when they come.

Every complaint is ultimately against the God who appointed everything that comes to pass, and every blessing is from God—no matter by what instrumentality it arrives. Thankfulness and contentment promote each other. Without them, your agitated heart will never have enough, never be at peace, and never mature. Notice what Paul associates with ingratitude:

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

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