Everywhere we look right now we are invited to consider gratitude. I see pastors preaching good sermons on it, social media posts chiding me to embrace it, and stores urging me to buy something to express it. Gratitude is a good thing even though we sometimes get “marketed” during seasons like Thanksgiving.
I try to be grateful. I do my best to send an actual thank you card when someone does something special for me. I try to say thank you when I order at a drive through or talk to customer service. I hope you do these things as well. I think these are simple ways we can share the difference that Jesus makes in us.
But in all this gratitude garble, I think it’s important to remember that it’s hard to be grateful for what we don’t notice. I think God wants to help us with this and that’s why God offers a “grace for noticing.”
In the Bible, particularly the Psalms, God gets at this with the word we translate in English, “consider.” It means basically what it says– to see, perceive, look at, regard. God seems to know that in our fallibility, it is difficult for us to live on a higher plane. We are often beset with our baser notions –we crave, we seek, we fulfill the craving, we move on. In Psalm 8, God invites us to something higher, something better.
“When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?”
Do you see it here? There is a grace for noticing. God has hardwired your operating system to take note of things beautiful and divine. This is why fall foliage impacts us, why babies are adorable even when they scream, and why the smell and taste of fresh bread makes our mouths water. We are wired to notice, to appreciate.
The grace comes when people like us who have chosen to follow Jesus acknowledge that these good gifts are really gifts from our loving God. Having noticed God’s handiwork, we are moved to gratitude. Sometimes that gratitude flows directly to God. I have praised God’s name out loud multiple times this autumn as I’ve marveled at creations genius. Sometimes that gratitude gets to God by way of another human who does something divinely kind for us. As we offer gratitude to the person, we honor the God who inspires all goodness.
Are you noticing today? Have you tapped into the grace of noticing that gives birth to gratitude? I urge you to join me in thanking God and thanking those who are his hands and feet.
