Gratitude: Why Giving Thanks Is the Key to Our Well-Being

By Cornelius Plantinga

"This worthy meditation on an essential state of being uplifts without sugarcoating."--Publishers Weekly

What is gratitude? Where does it come from? Why do we need it? How does it change us?

In Gratitude, award-winning author Cornelius Plantinga explores these questions and more. Celebrating the role of gratitude in our lives, Plantinga makes the case that it is the very key to understanding our relationships with one another, the world around us, and God.

Going deeper than mindfulness and positive psychology, Plantinga explores gratitude in a theologically informed and pastorally sensitive way. He shows that being grateful to God is not only our righteous duty but also the single best predictor of our well-being. Gratitude makes us more faithful, joyful, generous, healthy, and content.

While it's easy to focus on the suffering, fear, and worries that surround us, Plantinga places all of that in the larger context of provision, abundance, and delight, empowering readers to experience the deep joy of giving thanks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9781493444946

Cornelius Plantinga

 Cornelius Plantinga is president emeritus of Calvin Theological Seminary and senior research fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. His previous books include Beyond Doubt, Not the Way It's Supposed to Be, and Engaging God's World, and his many articles and essays have appeared in such periodicals as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, and The Christian Century.

Book preview

Also by the Author

Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (1995)

Beyond Doubt: Faith-Building Devotions on Questions Christians Ask (2001)

Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living (2002)

Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists (2013)

Morning and Evening Prayers (2021)

Under the Wings of God: Twenty Biblical Reflections for a Deeper Faith (2023)

© 2024 by Cornelius Plantinga Jr.

Published by Brazos Press

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.brazospress.com

Ebook edition created 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-4494-6

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Italics in Scripture quotations have been added for emphasis.

The author is represented by and this book is published in association with the literary agency of BBH Literary, LLC, www.bbhliterary.com.

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

For Nathan and Adam, two splendid sons

Contents

Cover

Half Title Page

Also by the Author

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Introduction

1. What Is Gratitude?

2. How Do We Get Gratitude?

3. What Blocks My Gratitude?

4. What Happens to Me If I Am Grateful?

5. Biblical Themes

6. Thank God! Why?

7. It Could Always Be Worse

8. Savoring and Celebrating

9. Taking Care

10. A Cornucopia of Gifts

Acknowledgments

Notes

Notes to Sidebars

Cover Flaps

Back Cover

Introduction

It’s one of the first courtesies little Noah learns. His mom hands him a cookie or a toy and asks, What do you say? Noah is slow on the uptake, so she follows up: Say thank you, honey. And Noah obliges by mimicking his mom.

Say please! Say thank you! Say sorry! None of these courtesies is spontaneous for a child. All must be taught.

And mimicry isn’t the only way to teach them. Maybe Noah’s dad reads him a bedtime story titled Bear Says Thanks. In this story a fluffy, lovable bear wants to show his gratitude to each of his animal friends by laying out a feast for them. There’s just one problem: his cupboards are bare. So his generous friends each bring a platter to pass, and Bear says Thanks! as they come through the door. When they sit to eat, Bear laments that he has no food of his own for the feast, but his friends pipe up that Bear has stories to share.

Little Noah is treated to a story of animal generosity and gratitude.

Noah will grow up into a world in which saying thank you is a social lubricant. We say and hear it twenty times a day. At the bank, in a store, on a plane—wherever small favors are given and received—we murmur our thanks. Doing so seems to make things go better and causes people to like each other more. The practice is so common we never notice it till someone omits it.

These are routine thanks that ease our way through daily life. But we sometimes experience weightier gratitude. Maybe my seventh-grade teacher comforts me after I’ve been bullied and then goes to straighten out the bully. Maybe my friend offers me a truly thoughtful gift, one they clearly had pondered for a while. Maybe my pastor or therapist counsels me in a way that changes my life. These are substantial favors, and we owe substantial thanks for them.

Above all else, there are the dynamic works of God. God is a mighty Creator whose love and imagination give us surging oceans, burbling streams, freshwater lakes with miles of sandy beach, and quiet ponds on which migrating geese ski to a stop.

God is also a determined Redeemer who rescues Israel from Egypt, provides for her in the wilderness, and delivers her to the promised land. In the New Testament, Scripture’s recital of the mighty acts of God centers on the work of Jesus Christ and most especially on his death and resurrection. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). As the Apostles’ Creed says, in him we have the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. You might say that the whole Christian life is a way of trying, however inadequately, to give thanks for these magnificent gifts.

As a lifelong student of the Bible, I’ve noticed how often its writers thank God for such blessings and summon readers to join them. Some writers do this despite being up to their neck in trouble. They treat gratitude as an especially urgent necessity.

In the New Testament, we can catch a sense of their thankfulness by reflecting on the Greek word for it, eucharistia—from which we get the word Eucharist. The Gospels tell us the story of Jesus’s Last Supper with his friends and of how he blessed the bread and gave thanks for the cup: This is my body. This is my blood. The world’s great eucharistia, its great thanksgiving, was transpiring before Jesus’s disciples. With Christians all over the world, we rehearse it every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Most Christian liturgies for the Lord’s Supper include the Great Thanksgiving or the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving.

Inspect the word eucharistia and you’ll see that its center is the word charis, which means, remarkably, both grace and gratitude.

This one little word says practically the whole of the Christian religion. Christianity is a religion of God’s grace and our gratitude, centering on Jesus’s brave sacrifice of his life.

Once we Christians become aware of the importance of gratitude, we start to see occasions for it everywhere. Look around. There is so much in life to give thanks for! Small things, medium things, colossal things. Post-it Notes, reliable cars, mountain peaks. You’ll also see that the happiest human beings seem to be the most grateful. Why? Could it be that gratitude is an engine of joy? A powerful engine of joy?

Over the years, I’ve become interested in gratitude: what it is, how I get it, what keeps me from getting it, what happens to me if I have it. Joy happens to me. Contentment too. Maybe also generosity toward others. Wonderfully, if I have generosity and gratitude, my relationships warm up a lot. Psychologists in recent years have discovered that grateful people have higher energy and lower blood pressure. They have less frustration and insomnia. They have more patience and hope. In fact, as we’ll see in chapter 4, gratitude is the single best predictor of human well-being.

Is it OK to try for gratitude just to feel better?

Why does Scripture put such a premium on gratitude—urging it, commanding it, making a sacred duty out of it? Suppose I try to do my duty, but then I look around me at human and animal suffering. How can I seriously thank God when the world seems so awful?

Yet, amid awfulness, real goods persist. What’s it like to savor and celebrate them? How might I keep a record of my thanks for them? How do I say my thanks, and to whom? What if some of the people who most helped me are currently dead?

If I am grateful for something, how do I take proper care of it? If the best way to say thanks is obedience to God and benevolence toward others, how do I tackle these assignments?

Finally, what’s a sampling of the rich gifts that should trigger human thanks?

As I’ve thought about gratitude, one question has kept pricking my mind. In 1 Corinthians 4:7 Paul asks simply, What do you have that you did not receive? And the question makes me defensive. Haven’t I worked hard for my success? Hasn’t my effort achieved good things? How about my determination and sense of purpose?

But then I have to admit that the energy for my hard work came from God and the motive to do it from my parents and teachers. I’m not entirely sure where my determination and sense of purpose came from, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t invent them.

So, what do I have that I did not receive?

1

What Is Gratitude?

The celebrated CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes presented a segment on August 14, 2022, titled Hope Chicago. The segment tells a remarkable story about what happened to students at a high school on Chicago’s South Side one day. On February 24, 2022, students at Johnson College Prep found themselves called into a school assembly without any idea why.1

Almost all the students at Johnson College Prep are African American. Many come from households with low incomes, and virtually all must dodge violence to get to school. Yet their high school is aptly named. These students hope to attend college. Fortunately, many JCP students are bright and qualified for college.

Their problem is money. Even with scholarships, many of the students can’t afford to go to college. They can’t bridge the gap between what their scholarship provides and what college costs. Besides, part of every scholarship package is likely to be a loan, which would saddle the students with intolerable debt.

So, as the students sat in assembly on that February day, they needed a miracle.

They got one. In fact, they got the shock of their lives. A millionaire businessman by the name of Pete Kadens walked on stage and greeted the students. Kadens is cofounder and former CEO of Green Thumb Industries, and he had a surprise for the students. He told them they would walk out of the assembly forever changed. The reason, he said, was that he was going to pay for their college tuition, their room and board, and all their books and expenses. Gathering himself, Pete Kadens said, You are going to college for free.

Joy erupted. Students leaped to their feet. They whistled and shouted and hugged and danced. Free! Could it be? Already overwhelmed, the students heard more. Pete Kadens was also providing a full-ride scholarship for a parent or guardian from each student’s family!

CBS was there to record the event. One shell-shocked student, Kavarrion Newson, said that he had always trusted God to come through for him. Now, he said, you can bet that God will get some special time from me tonight.

In the larger context of poverty in America, we might wish that 60 Minutes had instead told of a successful crusade for justice in employment, wages, and housing in South Side Chicago. Then maybe the students at JCP wouldn’t have needed Pete Kadens to swoop in with his miracle. Fair enough. But this thought cannot erase the plain fact that one winter day in Chicago, grateful high school students received news of a gift that would dramatically change their lives.

Gratitude, a Definition

After reading about the story of Hope Chicago, do we even need a definition of gratitude? Maybe not, but here’s an easy one: gratitude is whatever the students at Johnson College Prep experienced on February 24, 2022.

Let’s add a more formal one: gratitude is a glad sense of being gifted with something by someone and thus being indebted to the giver. As we all know, this glad sense is often accompanied by at least a small rush of warm feeling toward the giver.

That’s gratitude. It’s a mixed sense of being blessed by and therefore indebted to a giver, usually accompanied by warm feelings toward that giver. Usually, but not always. If little Noah’s mom tells him to say thank you, he might at some three-year-old level know that his mom just handed him a toy and be glad she did, but he might not feel any warmth toward her on that account.

Similarly, in a devout moment I might sincerely thank God for my good health—my thanks signaling that I know my health is a gift and that I owe God for it. I might feel an