Gratitude

Being grateful is an American tradition, especially this week. And research has shown that it has mental- and physical-health benefits, including less depression and better sleep, relationships and success at work.

But a recent article on The Wall Street Journal argued that what it calls “performative gratitude” may be bad for you. The article states: “Performative gratitude—compelling ourselves to be grateful when we’re not—is a form of toxic positivity. The energy we expend trying to avoid the uncomfortable feeling will, ironically, keep us focused on the problem. Then we feel guilty because we failed to be grateful.”

“Forced gratitude is manipulating,” says Sara Kuburic, a psychotherapist based in Sydney. “It prevents us from taking responsibility to change things to make them the way we want them to be.”

Pushing ourselves to feel grateful can harm our relationships, too. If we’re putting on a facade, we’re not being honest, and that can lead to resentment and a lack of communication. It can also make us appear like a Pollyanna—someone out of touch with reality. And this can leave us vulnerable to people who see us as a pushover.
One of the researchers said, “Grateful people may be perceived to be more forgiving and tolerant, so others may feel they can get away with something.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

The Bible urges us to be grateful for the Lord and his good character—but that can still allow room to express negative emotions like sadness or anger, as we see so often in the psalms of lament, for instance. But that isn’t ingratitude; it’s gratitude that has grappled with sorrow but still trusts in God.

Now here's an interesting take on the need for gratitude (aside from the hundreds of biblical injunctions of course). The magazine Inc. ran an article titled "Listening to Complainers Is Bad for Your Brain." Apparently neuroscientists have learned to measure brain activity when faced with various stimuli, including a long gripe session. And the news isn't good.

The article summarizes the research:

"Being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity—including viewing such material on TV—actually peels away neurons in the brain's hippocampus. That's the part of your brain you need for problem solving. Basically, it turns your brain to mush."

Possible Preaching Angle:
So, basically, too much complaining (either listening to it or dishing it out) turns your brain to mush. The article provides three practical steps to avoid that negative, brain-numbing experience of complaining, but that advice can't top the Bible's simple command: "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess. 5:18).

The next time you find yourself rotting in bed or going through the motions of another boring day, think about your older self. This is what TikTok creator @sonyatrachsel does when she’s in a funk. She’ll have what she calls a “time traveling day,” and it’s an outlook that’s resonating on the app.

On a time traveling day, Sonya will pretend that her 80-year-old self gets to come back to this exact moment and relive it. “You have to get real with it,” she said. “Close your eyes, imagine yourself sitting in your mansion on a chair, and then poof — you’re here today.”

There are so many reasons why Sonya’s “time traveling” trend has struck a chord. For one, it might make you emotional to think about your older self getting the chance to come back to a younger body for a day, kind of like a second chance.

This is a really beautiful way to frame your thoughts, practice gratitude, and think about what you would do if you had youth on your side again. Would you ride a bike? Go for a walk? Learn something new? Would you linger longer in the park and stare at the flowers? Be more adventurous?

Even mundane moments, like waiting in line, can become more meaningful when you think about how excited your 80-year-old self would be to come back to do it all over again. “It just becomes part of the experience,” she said.

This sweet and thoughtful approach to living can help you notice and appreciate the little things around you, but it can also inspire you to do more, live more, and have more fun. So, get up, get out there, and give your 80-year-old self a story to tell.

In her comments, someone wrote, “You just changed my life.” Another said, “This is genius! Don’t take your youth for granted.” “Thank you,” one commenter wrote under the video. “When I read this, I got up out of bed so fast.”

Researcher Arthur C. Brooks’ artist mother painted with watercolor. Brooks writes:

Over her many-decades career… her one constant in her work, however, was excellent technique… Growing up, I could draw a little myself and enjoyed doing so, but I never had her talent. Once, I asked her how I could improve. I expected her to say something like “Practice 10,000 hours.” Instead, she told me to look at what I wanted to draw. This baffled me because that’s obviously what I thought I had been doing, as I said to her.

“You probably aren’t,” she explained. “People almost never actually look carefully at anything; they glance at it and then rely on their brain to fill in the details—which it doesn’t, leading to crummy drawing.” So I did as I was told, and looked long and hard at what I wanted to draw at that moment: a tree. I found that I noticed much more about its contours, colors, and shadows. I drew each detail, meticulously—and sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty well-drawn tree.

More than that, I loved the experience of really looking: It was both creative and immersive. What my mom was telling me to do, I came to understand, was savor the encounter of seeing something deeply and drawing it carefully. And this kind of savoring, it turns out, can be applied to many areas of life in ways that help us become more adept at living and much happier.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1. Gratitude, Thanksgiving -- Savoring has been defined as “the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experiences in one’s life.” In other words, focusing on an experience in order to give thanks.
2. Savoring could also mean paying attention to Scripture or the character of God, etc.

A reporter for Business Insider writes:

Recently, my family group chat buzzed when I asked if we should say "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT when making requests. My mother, always polite, insisted on using manners with AI to "keep myself human."

As AI like ChatGPT becomes part of daily life, our interactions with these tools are shaping new social norms. Digital etiquette expert Elaine Swann notes that, just as we've adapted to new technology—like knowing not to take phone calls on speaker in public—we're still figuring out how to treat AI bots.

Kelsey Vlamis, another Business Insider reporter, noticed this shift personally. While vacationing in Italy, her husband had to stop himself from interrupting their tour guide with rapid-fire questions, realizing that’s how he interacts with ChatGPT but not with people. "That is not, in fact, how we talk to human beings," Vlamis said.

Swann emphasizes that maintaining respect in all interactions—human or digital—is important. After OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on X that it costs "tens of millions of dollars" to process polite phrases like "please" and "thank you" sent to ChatGPT, Swann argued that it’s up to companies to make this more efficient, not for users to drop politeness.

"This is the world that we create for ourselves," Swann said. "And AI should also understand that this is how we speak to one another, because we're teaching it to give that back to us."

Altman, for his part, believes the expense is justified, saying the money spent on polite requests to ChatGPT is money "well spent."

As we navigate this new era, how we interact with AI may shape not just our technology, but our humanity as well.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story about politeness toward AI can be used to illustrate several Biblical themes, such as human dignity, respectful communication, and ethical responsibility. 1) Kindness – Making kindness a habit reflects the nature of God (Eph. 4:32); 2) Human nature – The mother’s desire to “keep myself human” through politeness reflects the imperative of Col. 3:12 “Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” 3) Respect for others - The husband’s struggle to avoid ChatGPT-style interruptions with his tour guide highlights the tension between efficiency and humility (Phil. 2:3-4).

In August 1914, a British scientist and explorer set out from England with a crew of 28 men, intent on accomplishing a spectacular goal: crossing the whole continent of Antarctica coast to coast on foot. The explorer’s name was Sir Ernest Shackleton, and his ship was called the Endurance. Shackleton and his crew never made it to the continent; instead, the Endurance got stuck in pack ice, and eventually sank. The crew was forced to abandon ship.

What followed is one of the most harrowing survival stories of the twentieth century. They spent months floating on ice flows in the Southern Ocean, then their months on a barren, uninhabited island about 800 miles away from civilization, then Shackleton’s desperate journey across those 800 miles of treacherous sea in a lifeboat to South Georgia Island, and then finally a 36-hour-long trek across the mountains and glaciers of South Georgia to arrive at a whaling port. In all, from the moment the Endurance had gotten stuck in pack ice to Shackleton’s arrival at the whaling port, it had been 492 days. Miraculously, not one of the 28 men lost their life.

Shackleton wrote his book in 1919 not only to record their scientific discoveries and retell their wild adventures of survival, but also to express his profound gratitude and admiration for those involved in his rescue.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Testimony; Witness - What we see in Shackleton’s story is the same thing we see throughout the Bible, and the same thing we feel in our own hearts: rescue stories demand to be shared. When we receive a radical rescue, our hearts demand a response. How can we respond to the rescue we have received from God?

Brooklyn residents were in mourning in late October after a leaky fire hydrant was paved over by city workers. Over the previous summer, leaks from the hydrant had filled a small enclosure around the hydrant with water. Residents responded by adding goldfish and other bits of aquatic décor, painting goldfish onto a nearby light pole, and creating a seating area to view the fish.

Neighbors called it The Bed-Stuy Aquarium, referencing the name of the neighborhood known as Bedford-Stuyvesant. The pond became something of a tourist attraction after it became searchable as a location on Google Maps, and people from as far away as California flocked to it to take photos in front of the trending destination.

The unofficial aquarium was destined to be short-lived, because the fire department needed to make sure the hydrant remained in working order and didn’t freeze over the winter. Area resident Sofia Talavera said, “People actually took their time and their money to make it beautiful. This was literally the community coming together.” Talavera particularly enjoyed the aquarium as a late-night hangout spot. After the New York Liberty won the WNBA Finals, she posted a grainy image to Instagram with the caption “last night was so awesome I had to go to the aquarium to celebrate.”

The Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement that it was “looking forward to working with community members to find an appropriate alternative location for this impromptu gem,” adding that the goldfish were rescued and available for a new home.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Community Impact; Fellowship - While community safety is an important value to uphold, God’s people can promote mutual flourishing by adding value to the common good and creating opportunities for celebration for people. 2) Beauty; Creativity; Encouragement – It’s important to look for opportunities to add beauty and a moment for contemplation into people’s busy lives.

Psychologists John and Julie Schwartz Gottman write:

While every partnership is unique, with its own set of challenges, there’s one thing that all couples have in common: We want to be appreciated. To be acknowledged for our efforts. We want to be seen.

The No. 1 phrase in successful relationships: “Thank you.”

A thriving relationship requires an enthusiastic culture of appreciation, where we’re as good at noticing the things our partners are doing right as we are at noticing what they’re doing wrong. But it’s easy to fall into the trap of only seeing what your partner is not doing. You develop a narrative where you’re the one putting in all the effort, and you start to believe it’s true. Getting rid of this toxic mindset requires building a new one: scanning for the positives and saying “thank you.”

You probably say “thank you” all day long, almost without thinking, to your colleagues, to the bagger at the supermarket, or to the stranger who holds the door for you. But in our most intimate relationships, we can forget how important saying “thank you” really is.

For many couples we found that when one person started the cycle of appreciation, it became easy for the other to join in and strengthen it. Notice that they washed the breakfast dishes, answered phone calls, picked up the toys strewn all over the living room, and made you coffee when they went to make one for themselves.

Thank them for something routine that they’re doing right, even if it’s small, even if they do it every day—in fact, especially if it’s small and they do it every day! But don’t just say “Hey, thanks.” Tell them why that small thing is a big deal to you: “Thank you for making the coffee every morning. I love waking up to the smell of it and the sounds of you in the kitchen. It just makes me start the day off right.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

If saying “thank you” is crucial in human relationships, let’s remember how much more important it is to offer praise and gratitude to our Heavenly Father for all his grace and acts of kindness to us (Ps. 22:3; Ps. 100:4; 1 Pet. 2:9).

A young woman named Trieste Belmont was struggling with depression. Her grandmother had just passed, and she was going through a dramatic break-up. She was teaching a dance class at this time, but without a driver’s license, she relied on a friend to drive her to and from work every week. One day however the friend didn’t show, and Belmont waited for hours before being forced to walk home.

The route she used went over a high bridge. And when she got there, she stopped for a moment. She said:

I was just having one of the worst days of my life. And I was looking down at all the cars, just feeling so useless and like such a burden to everyone in my life that I decided that this was the time and I needed to end my life. I was sobbing and crying and working up the courage to just go through with it, because I knew at that moment that it was going to make everyone’s lives better.

At that moment, a driver, whose face Belmont didn’t see, and whose hand she would never shake, passed over the bridge and hollered out of the window. “Don’t jump,” they said.

It immediately clicked a lightbulb went on in her head; that if a stranger could care enough to speak up, then suicide was not the answer. She enrolled in therapy, and with the help of her friends, family, and therapist, she is far down the road indeed from that dark and fateful day.

Belmont uses the incident as an example to teach others to be kind to people, as it’s never obvious what they’re going through. The smallest kindness is multiplied by the distance, socially, between two strangers.

Writing for The Atlantic, Michael Mechanic parsed the findings of the most recent study on the perennial “Does Money Buy Happiness?” question. Recent polling from The Wall Street Journal and the University of Chicago points to a steep decline over the past quarter century in the percentage of American adults who view patriotism, religion, parenting, and community involvement as “very important.” The only priority tested whose perceived importance grew during that period was money.

Researchers definitively found, [in their original 2010 study], that the quadrupling of a person’s income had an effect on well-being roughly equal to the mood boost of a weekend “and less than a third as large as the [negative] effect of a headache.”

The authors also explain that “the difference between the medians of happiness at household incomes of $15,000 and $250,000 is about five points on a 100-point scale.” That’s “almost nothing,” one researcher said. With such a small difference, in fact, one could argue that “there is no practical effect of income at all!”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The origin of the proverb “money can’t buy happiness” has its origins as far back as 1750 in the writings of Rousseau. But even so, people still think that it can.

Do impressive-sounding, inspirational job titles make us feel better about ourselves? Can they change our behavior? Research suggests that job titles have the power to improve our well-being and sense of control, and shield us from feeling socially snubbed. They might even encourage us to apply for a job in the first place.

Since a powerful-sounding job title can signify social status, it’s not surprising workers aspire to them. But a fancy title isn’t always about status. Simply making a title more fun can influence behavior. After attending a conference at Disneyland and upon discovering that employees there were called “cast members,” Susan Fenters Lerch felt inspired.

The former CEO of Make-A-Wish Foundation returned to her office and told employees they could create their own “fun” job title, in addition to their official one, to reflect “their most important roles and identities in the organization.”

Researchers interviewed these employees a year and a half after Lerch’s decision. They found that their “self-reflective” job titles reduced workers’ emotional exhaustion, helped them cope with emotional challenges, and let them affirm their identity at work. Researcher Daniel Cable said, “The titles opened the door for colleagues to view one another as human beings, not merely job-holders.”

Researchers have also found that giving an employee a more senior-sounding title can make them act more responsibly by making them feel happier at work. Sociology professor Jeffrey Lucas found that giving high-performing employees a high-status job title could stop them from leaving. He carried out two experiments and discovered that workers with important-sounding job titles “displayed greater satisfaction, commitment, and performance and lower turnover intentions” than those who didn’t.

“However, as far as job titles go, it's important that people actually perceive the titles as conferring status. In other words, fancy titles that people perceive as being nothing more than just that would be unlikely to have positive consequences.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This attitude could apply to valuing church staff, elected church officers, and volunteers. Do we follow Paul’s example in giving affirming titles those who serve with us? He publicly appreciated them and called them “fellow workers,” “beloved brothers,” “faithful ministers,” and “true partners” (Phil. 4:3; Col 4:7).

Sis Vivian Richards is a legendary cricketer who represented the West Indies in their years of undisputed cricket dominance from the late 1970’s to the mid 1990’s. He is considered one of the greatest and most entertaining batsmen in the history of the game. During a time when many fearsome fast bowlers were playing international cricket, Richards never wore a helmet to protect himself from injury. He depended only on his skills, eyesight, and reflexes, to establish himself as one of the greatest of all time.

In a glittering career, Vivian Richards played in 121 international cricket test matches scoring 8540 runs at an outstanding average of 50.23. In spite of his extraordinary talent and the fame he found as a cricketer, Richards displayed a simplicity about his very humble beginnings.

In his autobiography, he spoke of the time when he was not well known and trying to establish himself in league cricket in England. In gratitude, he drew reference to the fact that a lesser-known cricketer from Sri Lanka, Shandy Perera, was a major influence on his cricket development with valuable knowledge and insights about the game.

It is commendable that a man who achieved such greatness in the sport would remember his humble beginnings and show gratitude to someone who had been an early influence on his successful career.

Similarly, the Bible tells us to, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). Let’s always be grateful for those who have guided us spiritually along life’s journey.

The manager of a Minnesota store was surprised to come back from lunch to find his counterhelp walking around in her socks. That’s because security camera footage revealed she had just given her favorite shoes, a pair of purple retro Jordans, to a homeless man she saw strapping boxes to his feet. Employee Ta Leia Thomas, known locally as “Ace” said the split-second act of kindness “was an easy decision.”

Thomas said, “He said nobody would ever give me shoes like that. and I said, ‘Well, I’m not everybody. I was always taught to help others. You never know what their problem is, or what they are going through.’”

Manager Tom Agnes said that even before the generous act, he wished he had 12 Aces on his team, such is her work ethic and joyful connection with customers. Agnes bought her a fresh pair of kicks before her shift was over, after which he shared the security camera footage on social media.

Thomas has been overwhelmed by the comments of love and appreciation, which quickly grew all the more intense after Agnes and a few friends in the industry came together to raise $450 for Thomas to buy another pair of purple Jordans.

Now after becoming a little bit more attentive to Ace’s life, Agnes learned that she is the sole caretaker of her mother, who sleeps in Ace’s bed while Ace sleeps on the floor. In the end he just gave her the cash rather than the shoes to buy a second bed.

You can watch the act of kindness here.

Author and blogger Chris Winfield shares his thoughts on gratitude:

“Why did this have to happen to me?” It didn’t matter if it was something big (my dog gets cancer, good friend dies) or something little (flight is delayed, spilled something on my shirt). I was in a constant state of “poor me.” This all started to change once I began writing a gratitude list every single day for the past 34+ months and it has changed my life profoundly. Here are the 4 most important things I’ve learned on my gratitude journey:

1. It’s Hard at First: My mentor told me to text him three things that I am grateful for every day. Sounds pretty easy right? Well, it wasn’t. When you’ve lived most of your life not focusing on gratitude, it’s not so simple to change that.

2. There Is Always Something to Be Grateful For: No matter what was going on in my life (business problems, I was sick, someone cut me off in traffic) there was always something that I could find to be grateful for (my health, my daughter’s smile, etc.).

3. Gratitude Grows the More You Use It: My gratitude lists started off very basic and I struggled to find things to be grateful for (especially on the really tough days). But once I consistently took action, it became easier and easier.

4. It Can Help Stop Negative Thought Patterns: According to the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, the average person has about 70,000 thoughts each day! There’s one big problem with this — the vast majority of these thoughts are negative. Gratitude can work to stop these negative thought patterns by replacing it with something positive.

When he was a kid, Kevin Boyer's parents left him special notes in his lunch box. Now he's keeping that tradition alive with his own students. Boyer is the family and student support coordinator at Gorsuch West Elementary in Lancaster, Ohio.

Last year, he wrote a personalized letter to every student in the school, and he's doing it again this year. Every day, he pens six notes, so that by the last day of school, he will have written a letter to all 600 students. Boyer makes it a point to learn the name of every kid in the school. He also finds out their interests and hobbies so when it's time to write their letters, they are one-of-a-kind. Boyer told local reporters that some students tape their letters to their desks, while others have told him they proudly display the notes on their refrigerators at home.

In the fall of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued two landmark statements. The first was the famous Gettysburg Address in which Lincoln commemorated the battlefield of Gettysburg. The other statement, made just weeks before, may be a bit more surprising. On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln instituted the first official Thanksgiving holiday.

Lincoln wrote, “It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gracious gifts of the Most High God] should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.” Thus, Lincoln set apart the last Thursday of November as “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father.” Apparently, in the midst of the worst war our nation had ever seen, Lincoln thought the time was ripe for gratitude.

We may be tempted to think Lincoln’s statement of gratitude was inappropriate, naïve, or even offensive. Reading the entire text of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, however, disabuses the modern reader from the conclusion that he had (somehow) forgotten about the Civil War. Lincoln candidly addressed the horrors of the Civil War, a war “of unequaled magnitude and severity” that had transformed tens of thousands of Americans into “widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife.” But he coupled this hardship with hope, recognizing the hand of God guiding him through the valley of the shadow of death.

Conflict and gratitude. Hardship and hope. Lincoln wasn’t confused. He was seeing thanksgiving through a biblical lens.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The surprising context for the holiday Lincoln instituted is a good reminder to us today. God wants us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess. 5:18) because it focuses our hope and future in the goodness and power of our God and not on our “light and momentary troubles” (2 Cor. 4:17).

Marilyn Oettinger can't stop thinking about it--and neither can her family. "There she was," says her daughter Margie, "confused, flabbergasted, embarrassed. And this guy rescued her."

She's talking about when her 89-year-old mom went on a grocery run with some other seniors to the Star Market in Auburndale--a rare unassisted trip since losing her husband in July. Things went fine until the checkout line, when Marilyn discovered her only credit card had been canceled two days earlier--because the account was in her late husband's name. "And this amazing person behind her said 'Don't worry. I'll take care of your groceries,'" Margie said.

The bill certainly wasn't meager--it was $109. Marilyn accepted his offer--believing she'd get the guy's contact info and pay him back later. Margie said, “She tried to get his name, but he said 'No. Just say a prayer for me.'" And then--with his good deed done--the fella vanished.

"That gives me the chills," said a woman wheeling a cart from the store. "That's an amazing story. Really cool." A man leaving the store agreed. "You know it makes me happy when someone who doesn't really want the credit gets it. They deserve it, right?"

Indeed, Marilyn’s family is pledging to pay it forward with similar kindness on future trips to the supermarket. But they also reached out on social media, trying to at least get the chance to say a proper "thank you." Margie says, "We're trying to find him. And even if he doesn't want to come forward, we're hoping that he'll know that we're incredibly grateful."

They've already said the prayer--several times. Margie said, “It's amazing to have an angel like that.”