Gratitude is Not Just About Saying “Thank You”

 

I just looked up “Gratitude” in the dictionary

and it says this:  The quality of being thankful.

I love that.

I don’t think qualities are something that come and go, it is something that you ARE.  So, you ARE grateful… you don’t just have gratitude today and then not tomorrow.   That is just a fleeting feeling you had… not a quality.

I was just reading about Joseph of Egypt,

and I noticed something I have never seen before.  Well… I’ve seen it, but not SEEN it.  Joseph is a servant in Potiphar’s house and Potiphar’s wife had her eye on him…

“And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.  But he refused, and said unto his master’s wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand; There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife:  how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”  (Genesis 39:7-9)

I have always focused on how Joseph denies her…

but I failed to see WHY he did.  Because he is so grateful!  His answer to her was a list of his blessings.  Joseph possessed the quality of being grateful, which became a power in his life and therefore impacted the way he behaved.

When I was in college,

I worked  in a program for troubled youth.  At the end of everyday we had to evaluate each individual on how they did that day.  Each youth had their own list of issues they were working on.  When I first arrived, I noticed something that I didn’t quite understand, but has since proved to be very enlightening.  Although every one of them had drastically different issues I was evaluating them on, there was one that appeared on all of their lists:  entitlement.  Feeling like they deserved something without earning it.  And that issue of feeling like they can take it because they want it, or hit you because they feel like it, or do drugs because I want to… was a thorn in their life that landed them in big trouble and absolutely impacted the way they treated people.  Regardless of what we were doing for them, so often their selfish and immature desires overpowered their ability to see that, and they continued to hide, sneak and do what they felt like.

If entitlement is on one end of the spectrum, Joseph is on the other.

“Doing what I feel like” versus “how can I do that when I have been given so much”?  We all have impulses to do things that are wrong, from treating someone badly to being tempted to sin in some manner…. if we just take a minute and think about what we have, to think about our families and their love for us, to think about Heavenly Father and all that He has given us…  to think about Christ and His priceless gifts to us…  will that not smother our desire to do wrong?  Will that not open our eyes to what is really happening?

So Gratitude is not just about saying “Thank You”.

It is about having eyes to see and  making different choices and behaving differently and being more powerful because of it.  It helps us overcome our impulses to do wrong… and is a key to overcoming the natural man.