7 Ways to Practice Gratitude According to Scripture

Life gives you two choices: You can grovel or be grateful. Grovelling about what’s going wrong in the world or your life will only lead to pain. This can affect your health, mentally as well as physically, and you won’t enjoy the life God gave you. However, scripture gives us encouragement and hope. Here are 7 ways we can practice the gratitude demonstrated in scripture.

Positivity

In the life of Joseph, many circumstances could’ve caused him to sink into a well of depression: sold into slavery by his brothers, led into a foreign nation, falsely accused by his boss’s wife, and thrown into prison. While imprisoned, he encounters two other prisoners who are distraught.

Instead of joining in their misery, he asks them why they’re down and offers to help. Don’t let situations make you negative. Staying positive keeps you in the right attitude to receive deliverance from God, as Joseph does. Joseph’s gratitude never wavers. When he walks out of prison, he walks into authority as one of the nation’s highest officials.

Worship

Job was a worshipper, and worshipping God differs from praising God. When you praise God, you thank Him for what He has done. When you worship God, you thank Him for who He is. When Job got the news that his servants, cattle, and children were all destroyed, he turned his thoughts towards God and worshipped despite his pain. When we face circumstances that seem insurmountable, we turn to God even though we don’t understand what’s happening or why. Only God can turn our situation around as He did for Job.

Prayer

Saul pursued David because he knew David would replace him as king. Then David, once Saul’s armorbearer, has to run and hide to escape Saul’s sword. When given two chances to kill Saul, David refuses. Instead, he prays to God. In Psalm 63:9-11, David prays that those who seek to kill him are destroyed while he chooses to rejoice in God.

David’s prayer reveals his gratitude for God’s protection and his hopefulness for a bright future. Prayer shows God we are putting our trust in Him. And we’re grateful for His intervention in our lives.

Praise

In Psalm 34:1, David expresses his gratitude to God by declaring that He will praise God at all times. He professes that God’s praises will always be on his lips. Gratefulness is not hit and miss. We’re not grateful one day and grumpy the next. We embody an attitude of gratitude that positions us to receive God’s blessings.  Gratitude is praising God at all times, like David did.

Rejoice

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he tells them to rejoice in the Lord always. Mind you, he wrote this letter while in jail. Jail isn’t known as a place of rejoicing. Jail is probably the least desirable place of all places. Yet Paul encourages them despite his circumstances. When life hits hard, you can throw in the towel, or you can rejoice because the God you serve is mighty, and He can bring you out.

Sing

In another situation, Paul finds himself whipped, beaten, and placed in stocks in a Philippian jail, along with Silas, his missionary partner. This is because he’d cast out an evil spirit in a girl from the city. Hence, her master was losing money that she could make for him through fortune-telling. With their backs bleeding and their limbs swollen from the chains, they don’t cry a river of depression.

At midnight, not only do they pray, but they sing praises to God. Then God sends an earthquake that breaks their chains and flings open the prison doors. The warden gets saved, Paul and Silas are pardoned, and they are escorted out of town by the city leaders. Singing shows you’re not focused on your circumstances but on the God who defies them.

Surrender

The best way to show gratitude is to surrender to God’s will. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus famously surrenders to His Father’s will, forsaking His own. We show God gratitude by accepting and surrendering to His will because He has a plan for the world and us. Trust Him to work it out, and be grateful in the process.

Gratitude is a powerful force. Practicing gratitude can lift us from the mundane and melancholy to seeing the marvelous wonders of God.  Take time today to express gratitude to the God of your salvation.