Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
Thankfulness as the Key to Spiritual Health
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In this episode, Johnathan Arnold and Timothy Cooley Sr. discuss the central place of gratitude in the Christian life and in God's redemptive plan.
Quotes from Timothy Cooley Sr.:
- In Romans 1, before the giant steps downward, verse 21 points out that "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful," and that alerted me to the possibility of unthankfulness being a first step away from God.
- True thankfulness should be the key to spiritual health.
- If I can help motivate my own thankfulness and other people's thankfulness, it's going to bring a lot of other spiritual values up.
- Make it a practice to begin each prayer with systematic expressions of thanks. Make it a basic pattern of life—I always start out thanking.
- When you are praying for someone else audibly, in their presence, a great way to start off is by giving thanks for them.
- We don't motivate people very much by scolding them. The inner kind of living growth that we're after, it's hard to motivate it by scolding.
- It's easy for us to think we can motivate someone else more by challenging them, scolding them, urging them, and that expressing thanks or compliments is the stuff that they don't need very much. But they do need it.
- Thankfulness is always good for relationships—both with God and others.
- Growing my relationship of love with God has to do with my thanking him and praising him—not that I have to motivate him to love me, but that my relationship grows through thankfulness.
- Sincere thankfulness tends to demonstrate that we value one another, which is so key in growing a whole, healthy church.
- As soon as I develop an attitude of suspicion towards somebody else, I will misinterpret all kinds of signals from them.
- The way we can thank God for all things is that he promised to work good out of it for us somehow. We're not thankful for an evil thing, but we're thankful that God has committed to work something good out of it.
- The Greek word for godliness has to do with regarding God in every part of life and knowing that all of life is under my Father's eye. Nothing happens that separates me from thinking about God. Where is God in all this? Where is God in this tragedy? I can't even explain it, but I know that's he's here. I know that he's with me. And I know that he's committed. This is not my imagining some cosmic teddy bear who makes me feel how I want to feel. This is what God revealed. This is what he says. This is the kind of God I am. Involving God in an underlying, constant awareness in everything we do—that's my way of thinking about godliness, and that connects very closely to thankfulness.
- There are people all around us who have not had the pleasure of someone saying "Thank you" in a sincere way that gives them the deep-down feeling that, "I can do this. I can do something. I do something that draws gratitude."
But I think the way we can thank God for all things is that he promised to work good out of it for us somehow.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to the Holy Joys podcast, a discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad to sit down with Dr. Timothy Cooley, who is the academic dean of Penview Bible Institute. He has his PhD in higher education leadership and pastored for over 20 years. So he has a heart for the church. And I've enjoyed my opportunity to converse with him for the last several years. I've counted him one of my mentors. Appreciate above all else his love for Jesus and his meek and Christ-like spirit. It's inspired me to want to be more like Christ and appreciate him so much. We're here to talk about something that he is especially interested in and has inspired greater interest in me in, and that is the somewhat neglected theme of thankfulness in the scriptures. And we're going to talk about not only what it means to be thankful, but how thankfulness is essential to God's redemptive plan, to the Christian life, and to the health of the church. Dr. Cooley, thanks for taking the time to talk. You're welcome. I'm glad to join you. So let's just start on a personal note. How did you come to see gratitude as something essential to the Christian life? It's been a significant theme in your teaching and preaching. And what is it that sparked your interest in this particular topic?
SPEAKER_03Well, studying Roman 1 many years ago, I noticed that before the giant steps downward, verse 21 pointed out when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. And that alerted me to the possibility of its being a first step away from God. And as I began thinking that true thankfulness should be the key to spiritual health, then I had to distinguish not the warm, fuzzy, generic, happy feeling about life being good, but the wholehearted recognition that God is God, God is good, and He wants to pour out blessings on us, even in the hard experiences of life. Then I began to see that thankfulness has to be that first guard point. If we keep true thankfulness in focus, it should balance out a whole lot of other Christian values.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, interesting. Actually, Hebrews 2 came to mind. We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it. And I become more aware recently that backsliding, falling away is not something that happens overnight. We we see people who fall away, and we've we've heard some tragic stories about that just in the last year here. Some prominent Christian pastors and leaders. And it's easy to look on at some of the choices that they made and think, you know, we we would never do that. Uh, but we don't often just jump off the wagon all of a sudden. We we drift away slowly. So, you know, what I hear you saying is that thankfulness is really uh essential to preventing this spiritual drift.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and the Hebrews 2 verse, that verb about drift away, and if you check different translations, you've got a whole variety of ways people have tried to get at that. Sometimes leaking out like leaky vessels or drifting away or letting them slip. So there's there's a whole metaphor there. Uh actually, multiple metaphors play into that word of different ways of emphasizing that you might not notice what's happening, uh, but it's slipping. Now, I also want to push against the idea that you can backslide and not even know it. God is faithful. So I don't believe that. And yet the Hebrews 2 passage does point out to us that there are some little things that happen, and we need to be diligent. And I think that the thankfulness is one of those guard points.
SPEAKER_01Good. So thankfulness uh obviously is something primarily positive. Uh, we don't want to just think about it in negative terms, but it's helpful to think about how it how it can help to guard and prevent against that danger. So, in one way, our thankfulness is inspired by the fear of the Lord, but it's also inspired by uh by the great joy that we have in God. So maybe talk to us a little bit about how um a Christian can cultivate this very joyful thankfulness in their life. We all, you know, we all talk about thankfulness and we want to be thankful, but it's it's uh, you know, it's it's easy to grumble. I think it's something, I think John Fletcher said something like this. Um, it's extremely natural to grumble like the children of Israel, but if you're going to be thankful, you're gonna have to do something about it. You know, it takes so how do we, you know, how do we do that? How do we uh um on one hand cultivate it, on the other hand, recognize this is something that really is, you know, it flows out of a life that comes to us in Christ by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_03Well, if I can still reach back just a little bit, Romans 1, 21 kept growing on me, but when I saw Michael Ziggorelli's research in cultivating Christian character, 2002, stating that the spiritual quality that closely that most closely correlated with the general spiritual level was thankfulness that really clicked because he had done some work among different people endeavoring to measure their levels of spirituality, and he found that thankfulness was the one that correlated most closely, and when you increase that, it brought everything else up. So that was another research-based thing uh that emphasized that that need. So if I can help motivate my own thankfulness and other people's thankfulness, it's going to bring a lot of other spiritual values up. But now coming back, how can we cultivate thankfulness? Uh becoming aware of its importance, I think, is a starting point. Just recognizing how valuable it is and how it is key to other areas of spiritual growth, and then initiating definite plans for being more thankful. For example, making it a practice to begin each prayer with systematic expression of thanks. I know there are times you need help right away, and you're not going to have a three-minute uh introduction of Thanksgiving. Um, but if we make that a basic pattern of life, I always start out thanking. Take, for example, the Lord's Prayer. You you've got a lot of attention on God's glory, his kingdom, praying that his will be done before you ever get around to any petitionary prayer. So just making this a pattern of prayer, and and then out of that, monitoring our own attitude of gratitude. Just just thinking about how how how frequently, how steadily am I grateful, and what can I do to improve that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's helpful. I'm uh working through the book of Colossians right now, my teaching and preaching, and so I keep coming back to this. And uh actually a few years ago, I heard a message on Colossians 1 about uh using Paul's prayer. Uh, you know, it starts in verse 9 from the day we heard we have not ceased to pray for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and so forth, um, that to use this prayer to pray for others, for their spiritual growth, and also for yourself. And so this is a prayer that for a while I've looked to, I've opened to, and I felt like my my uh spiritual life was kind of stuck or my prayer life. I wanted something fresh to pray, and I've turned back to this again and again. And one of the things that Paul says is that we're to uh we're to be filled with the knowledge of God, we're to walk in a manner worthy of him, bear fruit in every good work, being strengthened, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and light. So um now that I've studied Colossians, whereas before I had just kind of looked at this passage and not really considered it much in its greater context, um, thankfulness, I've realized, is actually at the heart of what Paul is is is getting after in Colossians. And uh and T. Wright says it is the one thing that sets Colossians apart from all the other epistles, is this real strong emphasis on um on thankfulness. And uh Colossians is often looked to as a book about spiritual formation, holiness. Think of chapter three, uh, that great chapter on holiness. So uh maybe can you talk to us a little bit more about how thankfulness is is not just one aspect of you know, one aspect among many in the Christian life, but it really is at the heart of everything else. It kind of fuels everything else in the spiritual life and how it's related to holiness.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and uh you made me think of some of Paul's other prayers where he tells people, I thank God every time I pray for you. So he he starts out his prayers, and and I think that when you're praying for someone else audibly in their presence, which I think is a valuable experience. I've I've received real ministry that way myself. And then once once I noticed how much it meant to me, I began to be a little more bold doing that for other people. Not that I think I'm great, but there's something special that happens when when we hear someone praying to God for us specifically. Uh, and a great way to start out is is to thank the Lord for that person.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. That's good. Yeah, and that's interesting because this uh week I actually posted something about how encouragement has been such a blessing in my life. And I think of well, actually, what happened was somebody just made a comment that they uh thought that something I wrote was valuable. And just that little word of encouragement blessed me. And it reminded me of something that somebody told me years ago, maybe it was two years ago now. Um, they said, you know, I believe in you. And uh it's like, wow, just knowing that somebody else is grateful for you and appreciates you and is thankful for what you're doing. It's powerful and it's motivating, and often it makes me want to be more holy than somebody, you know, exhorting and pressing me. Not that there's not a time for that, you know, there's certain things, but uh, but yeah, it's wow. It's like knowing that others are thankful for you is is really uh is really spiritually forming.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and we don't motivate people very much by scolding them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_03We often feel a bit we often feel a bit military, like get with it, uh, you know, step faster, faster, higher. And and there's a certain kind of motivation there, but but it's wearying. And and I know there are some things you can achieve because there's someone there giving you the orders and the challenges, whatever, but but there's a the inner kind of living growth that we're after, it's hard to motivate it just by scolding. So the thankfulness, and then like you're saying, you noticed after someone said something how good it made you feel, and it's also motivating.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I don't want to let them down, you know, I don't want to disappoint them, and uh and I I feel like what I'm doing is is worthwhile and valued. Yeah, it's powerful.
SPEAKER_03We value it ourselves, but we often try to motivate motivate other people by scolding them.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's true. That's sad. It's true though, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yes. Why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, you make me think of Stephen Moroni's emphasis on self-serving uh perception evaluation. Uh, a high percentage of drivers think they're above average drivers. So whenever we measure someone else, we almost always measure them more low than we would measure ourselves. Uh it it's Stephen Moroni is Calvinist, so he would point out that that's the noetic distortion of sin, that even in a holy person you do that. I don't know that it's all sinful in the sense of uh bringing guilt to us, but it it is a distortion that we we tend to overestimate ourselves a a lot of times. So my favorite one is that a high percentage of teachers thinks they're in the top quartile of teachers. So it's it's easy for us to think we can motivate somebody else more by challenging them, scolding them, urging them, and that expressing thanks and compliments is sort of the soft stuff that that they don't need very much, but they they do need it. And that makes me think of John Gottman's research, research on relationships, that the positive expression should be at least five or six to every negative expression. And he was studying married couples and then went back years later to find some of those same people, were they still married? And uh the number of exchanges, positive versus negative, was a key factor in that. And somewhere around five or six is the number he established. So I have to think, I I need to be I need to be saying something positive at least five or six times as often as I deliver anything negative. So and especially as an academic dean, you know, if if I have to say something negative to a student several times in the same week, uh that's just that's just really bad news. They won't want to see me. And and I can decide, well, they should be tough and and and put up with it, but it's the same with all of us. So then, you know, as one part of my strategy of relating is if if I can avoid it, I don't want to deliver very many negatives in quick succession. I I must, and in fact, I I think of it this way I need to pile up the positives as fast as I can so that when a negative comes up, I've already got a good solid foundation of relationship there.
SPEAKER_01That's helpful for another question that it's been on my mind about how thankfulness contributes to a healthy church. And we're we're really talking about the way our thankfulness affects, affects others. And uh, you know, as pastors, sometimes we have to handle tough situations as well. And uh sometimes we try to talk about somebody talk to somebody about something, and no matter how carefully we try to navigate the situation, it seems like it blows up. And uh, you know, maybe some of that is because we're not uh spending enough time building them up so that they're ready to, you know, to endure that kind of that kind of uh criticism or or whatever we might want to call it, whether it's church discipline, depending on the seriousness of the issue. So uh how how else do you see thankfulness contributing to our relationships in the in the context of the local church?
SPEAKER_03So establishing that that foundation, that thankfulness is good for relationships, both horizontally, horizontally and vertically. So it's always good for relationships. Now, I don't have to convince God to like me or love me. That's settled, that's established. But how can I grow my relationship of love with God? Growing my relationship of love with God is going to have to do with my thanking him, my my praising him. And again, it's not that I have to motivate him to love me, but that my relationship grows by thankfulness. Well, that's true horizontally. So thankfulness is one of those positive expressions, and and of course, it it's not going to work if we're not sincere. But one of those positive expressions, that sincere thankfulness, it tends to demonstrate that we value each other. Uh that that's just so key in growing a whole healthy church. What part of your question did I not get back to?
SPEAKER_01No, that's no, that's very helpful. I'm thinking too about trust, you know, um in our relationships and how thankfulness builds trust in one another. Um, part of trust, I think, is not only believing in somebody else, but knowing that someone else believes in you. You know, there's like this reciprocal nature to trust um that's built up. So I'm thinking about too how um how thankfulness can can create an atmosphere of more openness, maybe in a church. Um, I think that's that transparency, that openness never comes. And we need that for true holiness uh to flourish. And so I think if we're gonna have true holiness, we need openness and transparency. If we're gonna have openness and transparency, we need trust. And if we're gonna have trust, we need healthy relationships, which are built uh through, at least in part, through thankfulness.
SPEAKER_03Right. And and when I have confidence that you really care about me, that you love me, you respect me, I can I can more easily handle a little misunderstanding because I can remind myself, I know the relationship is there, I know that person loves me, so I'm not going to misinterpret. But as soon as I develop an attitude of suspicion towards somebody else, I will misinterpret all kinds of signals from them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, wow, that's really good. I think of so many times when somebody either has come to me or I've seen this happen and they they're coming to correct and they preface it by saying, Now I love you, but it's like well, now is not the time to suddenly convince me that you love me. If I don't already believe that you love me, this probably isn't going to happen very well. Yes, yes, yes. So so this is kind of like it thankfulness is important all the time because uh I might need to, and I don't want to I don't want to make thankfulness about something transactional or self-serving, but in some ways, uh to put it roughly, I might have to cash in on this trust that I've established, this relationship that I've built later. And if I know if someone knows that I'm appreciated, that they're more likely to be open to my criticism.
SPEAKER_03Now we have to remember that that positive part, that that relationship of trust, it can evaporate pretty quickly. And so it doesn't take very much to spend that cash and not have that that deposit that you can draw from.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So going back to something uh uh about about its relationship to holiness, um, we've mentioned a little bit about the importance of cultivating this in your life. How is the spirit working behind the scenes in all of this? I know that when we talk about holiness, we talk about holiness is produced in us through the spirit and the importance of being a spirit-filled person. Uh, you know, and Paul says in Ephesians 5, be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and songs and so forth, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the Spirit is at work in the community of faith, among the communion of saints, trying to produce in us this thankfulness. This is part of the corporate holiness that he's producing in a spirit-filled community. Um, how does how does the spirit working and then also us working, how does that that those two things, how do we cooperate with the spirit, or how do we partner with the spirit in this? And how do we understand the spirit's role and what he's trying to do in our lives?
SPEAKER_03Yes, your word cooperate is is what's in my mind. We get to cooperate with the spirit. And the discipline of thankfulness as an attitude, uh it allows the Holy Spirit to change us, to transform us. It keeps our mind on the goal, on the model, Christ Himself. And so that's cooperating with the Lord changing us. But but we can choose. Now, some of us are are a little just more glum. And in fact, some of us, uh if there's if there's a good experience, you know, we're we're we suck the life out of it because we know well, it's not gonna always be that good. Well, now that saps the thankfulness, and and we have to work on on changing that approach. Like, yeah, there may be trials ahead, there may be a negative thing, you know. Here, this person may let me down. But my my whole relationship is built on this thankfulness and honest relationship, honest love.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you talk about hard times, and it's it's difficult to give thanks in those circumstances. Um, but Paul says, give thanks always and for everything. So I suppose I've wrestled with that. I heard somebody tell what they thought was a joke, kind of poking fun at a woman who dropped her laundry on a windy day or it came off the line and she thanked God, and it seems kind of silly and ridiculous. But then I heard this story of Ken Corey Tenboom's sister, who you know is in a concentration camp and she's hiding a Bible, and she reads First Thessalonians give thanks in all circumstances. She thanks God for the fleas, which also seems ridiculous. But then uh later she finds out it's because of the fleas that the guards left her alone and she wasn't killed. And she was able to keep her Bible. You know, it's like, wow. So then I think to myself, like, wow, it I mean, does everything mean everything? Well, wow.
SPEAKER_03I think sometimes we almost have to deceive ourselves in order to try to thank for some things, and and I cannot imagine that God is asking us to be thankful for true evil. Right, right. So there are times, and God works good out of the evil, so there's thankfulness for the grace of God that takes even the most horrible uh abuse and works something good out of it. But I we can't always see that. So we're not I wouldn't encourage someone they have to thank the Lord for the laundry going in the mud. That's an old illustration that I think is just extreme. And and I've I've been pretty close to people that I am confident are. Are very close to God. And I've I've seen them under those tough times, you know, and they're not always flowing over with jubilant thanks. I don't mean that that they're not holy.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03But there come those times when when they just don't know what to say. And and to make people feel humiliated because they can't be effervescent in in the most difficult times of life. You don't have that in Job, you don't have it in Jeremiah. And Christ was not celebrating jubilantly, you know, at the worst of his times. He he responded with strong crying and tears in Hebrews. So I think that can be unrealistic, but I I do wrestle with that scripture giving thanks for all things. Most of the time we can emphasize in all things. But I think the way we can thank God for all things is that He promised to work good out of it for us somehow.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03So in that sense, we're not thankful for that evil thing, but we're thankful that God has committed to work something good out of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's really helpful. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to just rewind a little bit and mention that how the Spirit is behind all of this. You know, he's producing in us the fruit of thankfulness. Because when we do thank God in those times, it is something that goes beyond our natural strength. And I think we we, on one hand, we don't want to put an unrealistic expectation on anyone, but yet we also want to recognize that sometimes it is in giving thanks in those circumstances that people see God at work in us. Because, you know, an ordinary person, uh, an unbeliever, can thank God when something great happens. And uh they might not even believe in God, but I still hear people say on social media, I'll thank God, or you know. So they're they can thank God then too. One of the things about that marks us as God's people is our thankfulness in challenging circumstances because of the confidence that we have in it in his sovereignty. Um, but uh, you know, there's there's a there's an important balance there.
SPEAKER_03I I like to observe, I think that the Greek word for godliness, uh Yusubia, it has to do with regarding God in every part of life and knowing that all of life is under my father's eye. And and so nothing happens that that separates me from thinking about God. So where is God in all this? Where's God in this tragedy? I I can't even explain it. But I know that he's here, I know that he's with me, and I know he's committed. This is not my imagining some cosmic teddy bear who makes me feel like I want to feel. This is what God revealed, it's what he says. This is the kind of a God I am. And so that involving God in an underlying constant awareness in everything we do, it's just that's my way of thinking about godliness. And of course, that connects very closely to thankfulness.
SPEAKER_01Wow, beautiful. So you mentioned the Lord's Prayer, and all of that is contained in that opening uh phrase, our Father in Heaven, because Jesus has just talked about your father who sees in secret, uh, your father who, you know, who cares for you, who knows when the birds fall. Don't be anxious. And then and then just a few paragraphs after the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, we read, don't be anxious about your life, what you eat or what you will drink. Uh, look to the birds of the air, your heavenly father feeds them. So it is this, uh, it is this confidence in God's exhaustive providence, his, his total uh control, not in a deterministic way, but just his his uh absolute control. Nothing is outside the scope of his of his power and sovereignty that we can believe that in these tar challenging times, I can thank God not for the evil itself, right, but for the promise that he has given that even in this uh he will work it together for my good.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. So that God is in the perspective in every everything that I do.
unknownYeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03Everything that happens to me. Yeah. Yeah. So I think different times, God, you knew before I got out of bed this morning, before I woke up, you knew that this was gonna happen. Of course, he could have stopped it. I I believe that. I but he also knew what he was gonna do through it and around it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, so let's uh let's talk a little bit on the practical side of things. So you mentioned um sometimes it's just recognizing the important of thank importance of thankfulness, the need for thankfulness to uh to guard against backsliding. Um uh you mentioned some some motivations that can inspire more thankfulness in our life. Do you have any other maybe more concrete practical ways that someone can go about expressing thanks? It's it's not as easy for all of us to express thanks. Some of us don't know how to do that. Sometimes it feels awkward or uncomfortable. And I've been I've been part of some thankfulness exercises that that were kind of awkward, you know, people were trying to get you to say thank you, and it just doesn't come out as natural. And sometimes, sometimes it's meaningful anyway. But, you know, how do we how do we uh how do we cultivate in very practical ways? Like just to give it a quick example, I um I was I've not was not a good good one at writing cards, writing thank you cards, you know, and so I just bought like a stack of thank you cards and put them on my desk so that they're in front of me. Uh and that helped me like it when somebody does anything for me, I try to write a note right away and and give it because if I don't, I'll forget it won't happen. Uh, you know, what are some things that you found practical ways to cultivate thankfulness, not only for God, but for for others?
SPEAKER_03Um, to jump back to Ziggorelli, he found that praying for the poor was an effective way to increase thankfulness. And and that would be through survey and you know, dealing with a lot of people. So praying for the poor, praying for those who are worse off than we are, is one way to increase thankfulness. And I think that's a valuable perspective.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. So uh so just to comment on that, I think of something I heard once. The way you love something is by thinking about what it would be like if you don't have it. So if you're taking your if you're taking your wife for granted and you're you're you find yourself arguing with her, resenting her, whatever, step stepping back and thinking about how much value she adds to your life and what it would be like if she was gone today. How would you feel? What would how would your life be different? That is one of the best ways to produce love. We could probably say the same thing for thankfulness too, right? Think about what it would be like if we didn't have all those blessings.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. That's that's a good way to increase that. No, I I still want to come back to the positive side, just make a practice of saying thank you. So, like when my children were just small, it it became a regular pattern to thank my wife for supper. Just a steady pattern. So it was fascinating to me when I thanked my mother-in-law for making a meal, you know, she would not know what to do with the thanks. Like, yeah, well, it's it's uh, you know, that's just was just something she did. But then I tried to emphasize I really mean thank you, and I want to tell you that, and and just let the focus stay there that I am really thanking you. So just by continually practicing it, and I realize we can be a little concerned, like this is mechanical, you know, I'm I'm just chirping out these thank yous without meaning them. If you catch that happening, you need to revise something. But just practicing saying thank you and saying thankful thank you in a meaningful way, or or thanking for uh thanking for a character trait in your children. Uh you know, praising for appearance is nice, but the large majority of what we're trying to motivate in their life is not just appearance. So praising for character traits, thanking them for diligence, thanking them for paying attention to something. Uh there you're motivating the characteristics that you're actually after.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my little boy is only a year and a half, and uh, I've already learned so much. I suspect I will I have a lot to learn yet. But I've learned a lot, not only about children, but about uh adults and myself, because um some of the things that my little boy is looking for, it really the same things that that other people are looking for. So he likes to go to the piano and play a note, and then he looks at us and waits for us to clap, and then he laughs at people and then plays another note, you know? And uh wow, I think a lot of us we're not uh maybe looking physically physically looking at somebody else, looking for them to respond, but in our heart, we are we are longing for that affirmation, especially if we haven't had it when we were younger. And so um something that uh when I when I preach at the church, you know, a pastor with uh with Phil Brenn Eiser, and he'll say, You did a good job. I appreciated that. Thank you. Like, you know, that that means a lot. And if he doesn't say that because he just forgets or he's on a bad day, it's like, oh, it's fine because he says it all the time. But you know, I I almost come to expect that. And I'm not doing it for that reason, I'm doing it for the Lord, but it's uh wow, it's amazing how a simple thank you can can curb your insecurities, uh, and it can it can give you the courage to do it again. Um somebody, somebody you decides to sing a special at church or to be part of your uh you know, evangelism ministry or you know, do something that they've never done before, um, they may have a lot of insecurity about their perfor performance. And saying thank you and letting them know that it's appreciated could be the very thing to motivate them. Um again. And I just I just say all that because again, I want to put thankfulness in the context of building healthy churches and not just individually growing spiritually, but but building up the body and building up one another.
SPEAKER_03And and there are people all around us who have not had the pleasure of someone saying thank you in a sincere way that gives them the deep down feeling like I can do this, I can do something, I can do something that that draws gratitude. So all around us are people that rarely hear that kind of sincere thanks. So at first, some of them won't know what to do with it. Then that that's why you may have to kind of hold the focus there. No, I really want you to know I appreciate that. I really want you to feel my thankfulness for that.
SPEAKER_01That's helpful. Any other practical tips, things that we can do, uh very concrete ways that we can we can cultivate this in our life?
SPEAKER_03Well, you meant you mentioned cards. One of the projects I did for quite a while here at Penview was was to present the emphasis on thankfulness and then to print little cards that said thank you and some Penview logo on it, and just pass them out. And it actually, I'm taking an idea from Bob Bedford, who told me of a tremendous change that happened in a church he pastored, that he began to teach thankfulness and have them practice writing out and saying thank you, and they just did it again and again and again, and it try it just transformed so many things in their church. And and it was a pleasure here to pass out cards, give everybody like five or six cards in a chapel service, and say, I really want you to take a few moments right now, we're gonna stop everything, and and write a thank you note to two or three people, and then take the rest of them along and and tell somebody thank you. Because just like the cards you had on your desk, they kind of remind us. Um, you can also put thankful mottos on the walls or on your device or your computer screen. Uh, just some way to keep reminding us, this is important. I I I want to be thankful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I think that's uh that's helpful because I have a daily schedule that I look at every day, you know, and and uh one of the things I have on there is is a reminder to text people at the church, you know, let them know I'm praying for them or whatever. One of the things I could add to that is uh is this very this very thing, expressing thanks for them. Uh what about letters? You talk about notes. I I recently started, uh I made a list of a few people that have really invested in me that um that I really value that what they've done in my life, and I'm working on on writing letters. Letter writing is kind of a dead art. Um think about that. How could that maybe um above and beyond you know express thankfulness?
SPEAKER_03I think there's some value to having a physical object. Uh, and you have some kind of popular stories. I'm not sure if they're trackable or whatever, but they're they're pretty sentimental stories of of a teacher who had kids write out how they were thankful for each other, and then she summarized everything and put it on a paper, and years later, some people were still carrying around that piece of paper all the time. Um but if you complicate it too much, then then it falls under its own weight. But just continually generating some way of thanking and and uh that little bit of a physical object, that piece of paper. Uh, one of my teachers, Selma Witherup, told us to keep an appreciation file. And that was long before we were all using computers. So uh, and she had done it, you know, keep a folder, and and I have across the years, I've got a folder and different appreciative notes or letters or whatever. I just pop them in there, and then and she acknowledged to us you can get those out and in and be encouraged. Sometimes you're you're having a hard time. So I think the physical object is valuable, but of course I do an awful lot on computer emails and texts, and sending out numerous short messages has a value, though it doesn't have as much value as writing out, you're very meaningful to me. You know, Reverend Paul Miller just passed away at 93 years of age, but uh he was a blessing to me across many years, not that we were always together, but especially the last number of years, I reminded myself time's gonna be when when he'll be gone. I want him to know I really appreciate his investment in me. And and increasingly, as I realize my mentors are passing on, you know, I just keep reminding myself to go back and thank those people again and again. Thank you for the way you invested in me. And they don't get tired of hearing it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. That's good. Another another practical tip that uh we've practiced at the church is to have uh a midweek service where we just focus on on giving thanks. So originally we did this every year at Thanksgiving. We would have a Thanksgiving service where we would go around, every person in the congregation would share something that they were thankful for. And uh I had the thought that Christians ought to be more thankful on every day of the year than most people are on Thanksgiving Day. And so we started having those services sometimes throughout the year. Um, we did one uh about halfway through the year, and then another one at Thanksgiving, and then I think there was a year when maybe we did three of them. And uh, and what that did was when when Thanksgiving rolled around, then the following year, we we decided to limit it to spiritual blessings. We want you to thank God for for other other things, material blessings for your family, for your loved ones, and uh we're gonna make time for that. But let's let's go around and talk about spiritual blessings. So we either thanked God for an attribute, one of his attributes. So, for example, the psalmist thanks God for his holiness. And and Phil Brown wrote an article on thanking God for his holiness. And I never really thought about that. Um, thanking God for his his love, his mercy, his justice, and thinking about uh how grateful we are for who God is ultimately, and then that he has blessed us with every spiritual blessings and a blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So wow, before you even get to the other kinds of blessings, uh every spiritual blessing, that's a lot of blessings. Fred Sanders says the gospel is blessing upon blessing. It's just full of blessings, you know. And yeah, so thinking about cultivating uh thanks for spiritual blessings. How do we do that? That that's a big passion of mine. I guess I think that um we can thank God for a lot of things, but when Paul calls us to thankfulness, it it is often to thank God for what he has done in Christ for our redemption. That's that's the source of all of our gratitude. We're not just doing this for any old reason or because it makes us feel good or because it builds healthy relationships. You know, a leadership guru can tell you that, right? This is this is because God has done something for us in Jesus and it has made us infinitely, eternally blessed and thankful. So, how do we cultivate that in the church, you know, spiritual uh things?
SPEAKER_03Well, you touched on actually having exercises of practicing and and again becoming aware of it, then then actually practicing it and and helping each other to practice it. Uh, you can also do a session where someone says, I thank God for this person in their presence because they've been this kind of a spiritual blessing to me.
SPEAKER_01Good. That's interesting. So, like, you know, your their spiritual gifts, acknowledging one another's spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's uh yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_03I think I never thought of that. A correlating emphasis would be to teach people how to receive thanks because some people don't let you say thanks very effectively. So when you thank them, it ricochets and you don't get the satisfaction that it really blessed them. Which means it's gonna be harder to do it the next time. So to teach people how to receive thankfulness, it's not wrong for you to enjoy that that person appreciated you and what you did. It's good for you to enjoy that. In fact, it lets them know that you appreciate the encouragement. So when somebody compliments and people would say, you know, oh, it was a terrible job, you know, they they think that your sermon was good, but you think it wasn't all that good, so it was a terrible job. You just insulted that person who tried to thank you. You're telling them if you really knew what's what, you wouldn't think it was a good sermon. Well, now did you mean to insult them? So teaching people how to receive it, and and I used to do a small group exercise in in one of my classes, just paying compliments to each other and then learning to say thank you, you're very perceptive. Now that that sounds like pop psychology, but I I think there's really something there that we should know how to receive thanks, that when someone has blessed us by saying thank you, we let them have a blessing for having said it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, really helpful. You mentioned the example I was actually just gonna bring up. Uh, you know, when I started preaching and people would would tell me they appreciated, I'd say, oh no, no, it was, you know, it wasn't really that good. Or like, oh, I guess, you know, well, you know, but but uh that actually it's not helping me, and it's certainly not helping them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so if you want to teach if you want to teach people to be thankful and express their thanks, you have to receive it in a way that is rewarding to them and that that acknowledges what you just did is valuable, it's valuable to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very helpful. Any final thoughts, uh anything else that you would want to want to say about thankfulness before we bring this to a close?
SPEAKER_03Just keep doing it and making it a whole characteristic so that it characterizes the way that I live. And and if I notice that I'm not being very thankful, scolding myself isn't likely to solve that problem. Just start expressing thanks. And there's a there's a recycling value. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. But Jesus also said the things your mouth says will affect your heart. So if I want my heart to be thankful, I say thanks. And then out of the thanksgiving of my heart, my mouth says it again. And as I continue to reinforce that, the thankfulness keeps growing.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to the Holy Joys Podcast. Email your questions about theology and ministry practice to podcast at holyjoys.org. Our labors for a holy, happy church are supported by generous listeners like you. Please pray about partnering with us at holyjoys.org forward slash donate.
