The little boy is crying because he didn’t get the Christmas present he wants. The parent, not wanting to raise an ungrateful sod, reminds him off impoverished children just down the road who get nothing.
A little girl refuses to eat her food because it isn’t her favorite. She pushes the plate away and refuses to eat until she gets her favorite foods. The frazzled mom, not wanting to raise a spoiled brat, reminds her that there are malnourished children in Africa who
A single mom is crying in your office because she isn’t sure how she will be able to pay for that vacation she promised her kids. She can barely pay all her bills. She keeps trying to squirrel a little bit of money away to bless her kids but she just cannot seem to do it. She feels the weight of living paycheck to paycheck. Wanting to help her gain a little perspective you remind her that if she even has $5 to spare she is more wealthy than a large percentage of the world.
I was reading a book on depression the other day which made a similar argument. The book has been great and the author’s overall point is sound. His aim is to rescue us from hearts of ingratitude. But I would argue that his strategy, an extremely common one, of pointing out reasons why we don’t have it so bad actually undercuts the heart of gratitude. The path to gratitude isn’t to reassess what you have compared to others who don’t have so much. It is to view things in light of eternity.
Consider Asaph in Psalm 73. Dude was depressed. And angry. And this was because he was being an ungrateful brute. He noticed the hearty steak on his unbelieving neighbors plate and realized that even on his best night all he could muster was a TV dinner salisbury steak that is better described as “animal product”. And it ticked him off. He was the kid at Christmas whining because he got a Kindle Fire instead of an iPad.
So how was he snapped out of his brute-like state? Was his Grinch-heart grown two sizes when he realized that another Who down in Whoville didn’t even have roast beast but only a paltry can of French peas? No. His heart was transformed when he went into the temple. Gratitude doesn’t come from stacking the deck so that we win the comparison game. It comes from having an eternal perspective. It comes from realizing that life isn’t about steak or peas.
Here is why that game doesn’t work. It’s one that can only be played somewhere like America. How do you teach gratitude to the kid who doesn’t have $5 in his pocket? What do you say to the family who really truly doesn’t have a next meal? Do you say, “buck up, at least you don’t have Ebola”? No. That’s a fool’s game. Gratitude doesn’t come from realizing we’ve got it better than some other poor chap. Gratitude comes from realizing that our Father delights to give to us His kingdom. And when we come to properly value the kingdom then we see the world as Asaph finally saw it. Steak is great, but if steak is all you’ve got (if steak is your kingdom) then some day it’s going to get maggots. And that’s true whether you’ve got the Banquet variety of animal product or a Ruth Criss steak.
The better way to counsel our hearts when we’re given over to ingratitude—and especially that nasty type which leads to despair and depression—is to compare what we’ve got to God’s kingdom. We’ll see that what we have in our hands is paltry—no matter how it compares to what is in our neighbors hands. And then we’ll see that this glorious kingdom of His is freely given to us out of the Father’s delight. That leads to gratitude. And if you are given the grace to see more of His kingdom than you see of your despair you’ll be rescued (at least a bit in the here and now) out of the doldrums.
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