In keeping with last week’s post on vulnerability, I wanted to highlight another related topic. That is one of gratitude. Tony Robbins had a statement, “You can’t be angry and be grateful.” In my line of work as a physical therapist, I see a lot of anger. Not directly outrage but subtle and hidden, maybe sometimes borderline unknown. I think much of it stems from lack of control and difficulty accepting reality. We as humans are not always as strong as we think we are and are subject to mother nature, which sets us up for injury and with that comes loss of our desired way of life. Sometimes it is temporary but as we age, this is actually more permanent and requires a letting go attitude.
In the midst of it, it is easier and more obvious to choose anger. We ask questions like “why is this happening to me?”. We look for who or what to blame. We feel frustrated by our bodies and their limitations, which God gave us. Its difficult to accept the whole package. So we become angry when things don’t go our way and this can separate us from others and more importantly God. This phenomenon is present in many facets of life but I am highlighting the one I encounter most. When we become angry, we can’t feel the presence of God, only our own feelings. Although we can justify them, God is calling us to something higher: gratitude.
Gratitude can be a miraculous display of grace. We become closer to God, switching out mindset and focus from one that is negative to one that is positive. We know God is all love and in so can have no negative energy. That is how we begin to feel His presence. We know that His love, mercy and grace and bigger than our problems and therefore bigger than our anger. How can we call on this grace more readily? Through prayer and thanksgiving. While gratitude may seem the same as giving thanks, I believe gratitude is a state that comes from the action of giving thanks. This idea is something I see repeated as a common theme in my daily devotionals from Sarah Young called Jesus Calling and Jesus Always.
So how do we give thanks? Through prayer! Prayer, in it’s most simple form, is communication with God. We talk to God, acknowledging Him as supreme being, giving praise and in doing so admitting humility and vulnerability. We say “I can’t do this and I’m struggling.” We also ask for help, knowing He will give us what we need when we need it. Now this second part is more difficult because we are giving up control, which is what led us to anger in the first place. In letting go, we can now be ready to receive the grace of gratitude. Imagine holding onto that anger with clenched fists. How can you hold onto more than one thing at a time? As long as we are holding onto anger, those same hands cannot hang onto gratitude when we are handed it. We must let go in order to receive.
Now that we are holding onto the gratitude, we can see that maybe God is calling us to something when we are going through that struggle. We can become thankful that God is calling us and believes in us. We thank him for the trial. We thank him for the weakness. This is extremely counter to anything a human is. Why would we accept suffering? Why would we be happy about the pain and difficulty of our reality and be thankful for it? It is because that is how we enter our state of gratitude and welcome God into our lives. We invite His presence and say yes to Him and no to our flesh, our ego, our negative energy.
This is our Spirit of Gratitude. It welcomes God in and dispels the pain that comes with anger. We become free.
Leave a Reply