Gratitude When The World Is Burning
My friend Diana Butler Bass wrote a book called “Grateful” and I was flipping through it tonight because, honestly, it’s hard to feel grateful these days.
Right?
Every time I log onto any social media platform I’m immediately hit with a sea of bad news about …
COVID-19.
New death tolls.
Rising infection rates.
The need to wear a mask when I leave my house.
Children being infected.
Earthquakes.
Fires.
Pastors being arrested.
People refusing to cooperate.
Governors not taking action.
… It’s taking a toll, right? It’s exhausting and, honestly, hard to be grateful sometimes. “How can I be grateful, God?” I find myself asking that a lot lately. “Like, I know we should be joyful and I know we should be thankful and I know that we ought to always be expressing gratitude, but … I just don’t want to. The burdens are heavy. The yoke is heavy. You said you came to lighten the load and it doesn’t really feel like you’re doing a very good job at it. It feels like the world is burning and you forgot to turn on the water to the fire hose.”
Gratitude is hard in times like this, for sure, especially when our sense of gratitude is tied to the condition of our circumstances.
Right?
Because if my gratitude meter goes up ONLY when things are going well, then things like COVID-19, rising death tolls and infection rates, earthquakes, sinking economies, etc. won’t do much more than cause gratitude to feel like a distant and far-fetched wish.
BUT.
What if gratitude doesn’t need to be tied to our circumstances?
AND.
What if gratitude could exist apart from the circumstances of our lives altogether?
In her book, Diana says …
“Gratitude, at its deepest and perhaps most transformative level, is not warm feelings about what we have. Instead, gratitude is the deep ability to embrace the gift of who we are, that we are, that in the multibillion-year history of the universe each one of us has been born, can love, grows in awareness, and has a story. Life is a gift. When that mystery fills our hearts, it overwhelms us and a deep river of emotions flows forth.”
Did you catch that?
In a multibillion-year history.
We (YOU and I) have been born.
We (YOU and I) have the ability to love.
We (YOU and I) have the ability to grow in awareness.
We (YOU and I) have a story.
And so, yes, the world might feel like it’s burning and sometimes it might feel like God forgot to turn on the hose to put out the fire, but the reality is that you and I have been born into this very day, into this very moment with the power to love our neighbors, to do good in our part of the world, and to be a force of life in the midst of the death that so often seems to surround us, to grow in our awareness of the needs of others and our awareness of the goodness that is instilled deep within all of humanity.
AND.
This part of the multibillion-year universe will be part of our story. Someday our great-great-great grandchildren will read about COVID-19 in their history books and they might be able to raise their hand in class to the tell the story of their great-great-great grandma or grandpa (YOU and ME) and how we put others before ourselves by …
Staying home.
Checking in on our neighbors.
Speaking out against the selfishness of those who refuse to practice social distancing.
Giving big tips to the Instacart delivery person.
Yes.
And for all of that I can be grateful. Why? Because none of it is tied to the circumstances around me, but all of it is tied to my perspective …
On getting to wake up today and again tomorrow.
On my ability to love.
And on the story that generations to come will tell of me.
Jesus once said, “I am with you always even to the end of the age”. He didn’t say, “I am with you and will make sure everything is easy” or “I am with you and will make sure your life is a piece of cake” or “I am with you and you’ll never have another problem again.”
No.
Instead, he just said, “I am with you.”
That’s it, that’s the promise: I. Am. With. You.
May you know that today - God is with you. And for whatever reason the universe might have, out of billions of years you were placed into this moment with the capacity to love, to do good, and to weave together a story that will inspire generations to come.
Let’s be grateful tonight.
Much love,