Canter Bridge

It is impossible to imagine the ethical lifestyle towards which the apostle Paul encourages the churches without reckoning with the prominence of gratitude.

Simply put, thanksgiving is a powerful  motor. Apart from whatever else it represents, thankfulness fuels and in some ways summarizes the way of the believer in Jesus Christ.

As Paul draws an extensive piece of ethical instruction to its conclusion, gratitude comes to the fore:

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:14–17 ESV)

We live either as though the world has cheated us of what we are owed. Or as though life has given us more than we deserve. There are only two ways.

We call the latter—with its constant element of bemused surprise—thanksgiving or gratitude. It is different from feeling lucky, for strictly speaking the feeling of having been befallen by good luck has no object. Thanksgiving or gratitude, on the other hand, is directed to someone, who has been one’s benefactor, the giver of the gift one has received. Gratitude is personal. Someone has been generous and I am grateful to that person.

Near the end of the passage just quoted, Paul appears to focus on one skein of the yarn that is gratitude.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17 ESV)

There is a certain robust, comprehensive fulness in the words and actions of a grateful life.

All that one speaks and all that one does are speech-acts and purposive movements that express the character of Jesus and express thanks to God the Father. Gone is the squeamish fear that I may have lost may way, may have crossed some invisible line. The overcautious sophistries of ethics that are not grateful ethics is absent.

No good thing, no Jesus-aligned thought or word need fall outside this circle of life-as-thanksgiving.

The countless dots that form the line that is the trajectory of our life become thank you’s. Life can be no more relational and no less grumpy than this.