Gratitude: From Duty to Delight

How Interactive Gratitude Changes Everything

Through the roller coaster of the covid-19 year, I wanted to bring a practice to help us metabolize emotion in a simple journaling method WITH God. Immanuel Journaling developed by Sungshim Loppnow and written about in The Joyful Journey along with Jim Wilder & other co-authors, is based on the neuroscience of attunement as well as Exodus 3:7-8, Once again I’ll repeat it here:

“I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them.”

Today we start with step one: Interactive Gratitude.

So I have to start this conversation around interactive gratitude  (music pairs down here ) with a confession. And here’s my embarrassing truth: Gratitude has always felt a little like a box to check off, more duty than delight. For years, I’ve checked off the box faithfully knowing it was vital for mental, spiritual, and emotional health, but honestly, it felt a bit like taking vitamins.

But interactive gratitude, the first stage in Immanuel Journaling has surprised me with its power. It’s been like discovering a key I didn’t know existed to enter into deeper delight with God. A key to a door to mutual delight.

Did you read or watch Secret Garden as a kid? Think discovering the key under hanging vines of low expectations and turning it in a rusty old lock that didn’t appear promising but opening the door to security, the loveliest walled safety, to a profusion of beauty, to ongoing revelation.

And could anything be more important than joy and delight in a time period perforated with a steady influx of grief and anxiety? Who couldn’t handle more delight in 2020? 

So here’s the simple formula to interactive gratitude. 

We tell God what we’re thankful for and why. 

We journal, Dear God, I’m thankful for…

And then we lean in to listen: 

My dear child…

And we write down what we hear: a Father’s joy at a beloved child’s gratitude and home-turning.

So today I want to share the journey of going from duty to delight, from list making to communion. I’ll share four things that changed my relationship towards gratitude: a metaphor, a few short scriptures, the quote I keep re-reading, and then finally, a picture of my red-haired Nona, a master gift-giver, who gave in order to develop deeper connection with all who received from her thoughtfulness.

First, the metaphor.

Have you ever watched a parent and child interact on a scavenger hunt that the parent had designed? 

Andrew’s mom was a genius scavenger hunt creator and riddle master when he was growing up and a few years ago I got to witness her genius as she designed one for the kids with riddles which rhymed. She may be the smartest woman I know. 

Recently my dad followed suit by creating a scavenger hunt for my youngest child to find his birthday gift: a new bike my mom tracked down in the middle of the Covid bicycle shortage.

All the cousins stayed in a pack around Xavier, pondering over the riddles, figuring out the puzzle of clues together as my dad knowingly chuckled. With delight, Dad watched Xavier run from post-it note to post-it note across the property before he discovered the surprise of his birthday bike hidden in the boiler room. Xavier’s response upon finding the bike? He ran full force back into his grandpa’s arms with a hug.

And I wonder if God’s generosity is akin to a well-designed scavenger hunt. Thoughtful. Personal. A journey of discovery and gratitude with the payoff of mutual delight.

Next, the scriptures which expanded my understanding of gratitude.

Acts 17:28 invites us to scan the horizon reminding us ALL is gift: In him we live and move and have our being. Our heartbeat. Our Breath, water, movement, minutes. Hours. Days. Years. It’s all supported and created by his creation, his Pneuma breath. 

The smallest thing, the one we barely notice until it’s not usable offers opportunity for amazement. After breaking a toe, we suddenly realize how complex the ankle and foot is! With its 28 bones, 33 joints, more than 30 muscles, numerous tendons and 121 ligaments, the foot and ankle all work together like a symphony making movement possible…and jogging itself as, well, a complete and utter miracle. 

And it’s all supported by the Being of God.

Then here, Listen to James 1:17. It’s a verse you may have passed over. 

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

God’s gifts are not scattered casually like chicken feed. God is not fickle, capricious, or mercurial. His gifts are thoughtful, unique, and personalized. And they are meant to turn our eyes back to his with a love.

First, the metaphor, second the scriptures, and now the quote that has rocked my world for the last 25 years.

It’s from a short theology book by Alexander Schmemann: For the Life of the World. A brilliant book.

Listen:

All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God. It is divine love made food, …. God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation: “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Schmemann then gives us a clear image of our role in this generous, unfolding drama:

“The first, the basic definition of man, is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God—and by filling the world with this eucharist, (this gratitude born out of relationship) he transforms his life, the one that he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him.”

Finally, the story.

One Christmas Grandpa wanted everyone to open their presents at once. He counted off: 1, 2, 3, go! Masses of Christmas gifts were opened by all the grandkids all at the same time. He chuckled the entire time, blue eyes darting from person to person. After the mayhem, we ran and piled on top of him. He loved to imagine what would give us the most joy. Thus the three-second Christmas.

My red-haired grandmother was NOT a fan of the three-second Christmas.

Nona was a gift-giving ninja master. She had a knack for gathering intel throughout the fall, searching far and wide for each specific gift. Then she’d spend hours in the basement watching the Today Show while she wrapped pyramids of gifts with her classic tight corners and curls of ribbons. 

When it was our turn to unwrap a gift, Nona would come and sit next to us on the couch, giving us her full attention. 

As we unwrapped, she smiled and held her breath. She held out her arms ready for the embrace that came as we practically knocked her over with enthusiasm.

Then there was the after-gift liturgy that she offered, sometimes right after the unwrapping, sometimes later over her lemon cake. She let us in on the secrets behind her gathering. We chatted about where she had found it and the sneaky ways she had gotten her intel. 

We felt known. We felt loved. She felt appreciation. Receiving a gift from Nona and thanking her for it was never a duty. It was a well-conceived avenue for connection. 

So friends, it’s this last story …this story of my red-haired Nona and her madly meticulous gift-giving skills which has absolutely transformed my understanding of the power of gratitude for a deeper intimacy with God. 

If my Nona understood gift-giving was an avenue toward deeper knowing and mutual delight, how much more so our Abba, from whom every good and perfect gift flows…even in the middle of our most ordinary days. 

The deeper I’ve practiced interactive gratitude, this first stage of Immanuel journaling, (saying thank you and then listening to God’s heart towards you in return,) the more I’ve recognized my former relationship with giving thanks was incomplete, perhaps even stilted. It was relegated to my left brain along with list-making and taking my spiritual vitamins. Rarely did it turn my eyes to the Giver. 

This metaphor of the scavenger hunt as an invitation to mutual delight, the scriptures of God as a lavish in his giving, the Schmemann quote of man receiving the earth and it becoming transformed into communion through gratitude, and then the story of my Nona’s gift-giving genius as an invitation to connection has been so much gold. So much treasure. An invitation to return over and over to my Abba’s heart.

Join me in this lectio divina, starting at minute: 15:07

Matthew 7

9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 

Thank you friends for walking this journey of discovery around gratitude with me. 

If you’re interested in the neuroscience behind interactive gratitude, there’s plenty. Get yourself a copy of Joyful Journey: Listening to Immanuel. Interactive Gratitude turns on the prefrontal cortex and sets up the safety we need in order to experience God attuning towards us.

While you’re there, you can subscribe on the right for the Saturday morning newsletter many people are saying is their favorite way to begin the weekend. A story. A lectio divina video. A reflection question. And a blessing. A type of choose your own adventure for a slow weekend full of the best sort of connection to God.

Once again, thank you for walking with me as together we learn to rest and find home-base in the heart of God.

Today, may you know that you are held in the hollow of God’s hand.